Donna Abbate
Augustus Lamb Inventor of the Personal
Satellite Detector, 2023
colored inks and pencil on paper
14" x 11"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

Abbate plays the “mad scientist” with her art. A surrealist at heart, Abbate juxtaposes forms based on nature, known and unknown, microscopic and macroscopic. The compositions are an orchestration of chaos: colors, shapes, plants, landscapes, animals, figures, collected and layered into a two dimensional composition. Much like a spirit, each piece has a sense of self, a stately portrait, a dreamlike landscape or a scientific study of flora, infused with a vital force that challenges the veil of reality. These illustrations become a way to celebrate the mysterious and fantastic elements of our planet, asking the viewer to look again at their surroundings and contemplate the way things could be if there were no limits on our natural world. 

“Scientist Augustus Lamb, Inventor of the Personal Satellite Detector” illustrates the enigma of how art and science together can visualize the seemingly impossible innovations, even the laughable, and then surprises us when reality and practicality embraces that improbability.

Donna Abbate
Stephanus Baring Inventor of the Psychic
Phenomena ESP Helmet, 2023
colored inks and pencil on paper
14" x 11"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

Abbate plays the “mad scientist” with her art. A surrealist at heart, Abbate juxtaposes forms based on nature, known and unknown, microscopic and macroscopic. The compositions are an orchestration of chaos: colors, shapes, plants, landscapes, animals, figures, collected and layered into a two dimensional composition. Much like a spirit, each piece has a sense of self, a stately portrait, a dreamlike landscape or a scientific study of flora, infused with a vital force that challenges the veil of reality. These illustrations become a way to celebrate the mysterious and fantastic elements of our planet, asking the viewer to look again at their surroundings and contemplate the way things could be if there were no limits on our natural world.

“Scientist Sir Stephanus Baring, Inventor of the Psychic Phenomena, ESP Actuator Helmet” reflects upon how calmly we wear “the hat of the newest, most invasive technology”, only to ponder later on how it has changed us.

Jill AnnieMargaret
The Cataclysm of Denial, 2024
woodcut with pochoir on kozo
98" x 43"
Courtesy of the artist

Accompanying poem:

a storm of chaos,
what used to be has never been.
under the illusion they were anchored, they drift…

unmoored.
in this cataclysm of denial,
they stockpile their arms to suppress their fear.

in what used to be paradise, an island sinks.
a flying fox tussles twilight with wings of skin,
pollinating the last guava tree

Artist Statement
Trauma and resilience, ecological exploitation and conservation are at the heart of Jill AnnieMargaret’s oeuvre. These issues and experiences radiate from and penetrate every individual and non-human animal and are mirrored and visible in every society in the ever dire climate crisis. Her work bridges with the sciences of forensics, epigenetics and the climate, physically manifesting in the iterative practices of printmaking. The scientific roots of her practice can be found conceptually and physically in works such as Shed and Hairstory-Herstory and the mural at the Los Angeles Oiled Bird Care Center in San Pedro, California.

The first state of this woodblock was proofed in October, 2019. What began as an image printed from a single 72” x 43” block, the pandemic, social unrest and personal turmoil required the image to be radically altered. In 2020, the pandemic shifted AnnieMargaret’s swimming practice into open water and after the break up with her long term partner, featured as the meditator in this image, she was called to swim in the ocean as a way to heal and reorient. In late 2023, she traveled to the Republic of Maldives and swam 15 miles in the Indian Ocean. It was there that she encountered and swam with exotic rays, sharks and strange fish including the unicorn fish and moorish Idols featured at the top of the image. In the final state of the image, the Indian ocean is above all else. It rises, flooding the greed, destruction and war below.

The addition of the second block required that the head of the figure be removed. This was done with a jigsaw and permanently altered the original block. It was a risk, but the desire to resolve the work was now fueled with the desire to help save the fragile and endangered beauty, flora, fauna and marine life experienced in the Republic of Maldives. AnnieMargaret designed and carved the second block to fit into the first. The now headless meditating figure remains as a calming anchor but, Pteropus medius ariel, a flying fox, asserts its presence and its precarity over the consciousness and awareness of the meditator. AnnieMargaret encountered several flying foxes, while in the Republic of Maldives, one of the largest fruit bats on the planet. Often seen as pests and exterminated for eating guavas, Flying Fox are crucial pollinators and can pollinate trees in a 150 kilometer radius, serving an important role in the ecosystem of Maldives which is one of the nations that will be most susceptible to ocean level rise, coral bleaching and
the impending climate catastrophe.

The process of creating this image was one of excavation: carving away the negative space while simultaneously holding grief and hope. The areas that are white, the non-inked areas of the print are the areas that the artist carved by hand. The gouging of the wood revealed the image. Does the gouging align with denial or with the release from it? The two blocks fit together like a giant puzzle. They are two unlikely realities coming together for resolution. When will governments, petroleum giants and wealthy nations finally take the risk and come together to help stop the climate catastrophe? What is the missing piece of the puzzle for them to stop denying their complicity in this global tragedy?

Jocelyn Armstrong
Oculus, 2024
porcelain, soft pastels, platinum luster, liquified quartz
12" x 16.5" x 9”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Oculus is the eye of the universe, the observant one. She is an homage to the feminine form as a vessel containing the creation of life, the wisdom of the past and the promise of the future. Her form has a cyborg quality, acknowledging the changes and challenges that nature and science will bring to our the future.

Both Oculus and Oracle are each from the series “Divine Ones” with their faces tilting upward like Cycladic sculptures, drinking in the cosmos.

In early 2024, Armstrong began working with oil and soft pastels, as well as watercolors on the surface of her figurative work, searching for new surface treatments. What ceramicists call “cold glaze”. Her aim was to find cleaner color that was easier to control than glaze, to apply the coloring of the sky or cosmos onto the figure in a painterly fashion. After much experimentation, she found that soft pastels worked well to create a powdery matte surface and an “ombre” effect. By under-firing the porcelain just a bit, a toothiness is left on the surface that holds the color well. Armstrong layers the color and rubs the soft pastels in so the color is embedded into the surface of porcelain. It is then fixed onto the surface with regular fixative. Still, she wanted the surface to be impenetrable like a glaze. After some research, she found Liquid Quartz, made in
Australia for exactly this purpose. It creates a quartz matte barrier that roots into the surface making it waterproof and food safe

Jocelyn Armstrong
Oracle, 2024
porcelain, soft pastels, platinum luster, liquified quartz
22 x 16.5 x 15"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Oracle is an agency of divine communication, an homage to the feminine form as a vessel that contains in the creation of life, the wisdom of the past and the promise of the future. Her form has a cyborg quality, acknowledging the changes and challenges that nature and science will bring to our future.

Both Oculus and Oracle are each from the series “Divine Ones” with their faces tilting upward like Cycladic sculptures, drinking in the cosmos.

In early 2024, Armstrong began working with oil and soft pastels, as well as watercolors on the surface of her figurative work, searching for new surface treatments. What ceramicists call “cold glaze”. Her aim was to find cleaner color that was easier to control than glaze, to apply the coloring of the sky or cosmos onto the figure in a painterly fashion. After much experimentation, she found that soft pastels worked well to create a powdery matte surface and an “ombre” effect. By under-firing the porcelain just a bit, a toothiness is left on the surface that holds the color well. Armstrong layers the color and rubs the soft pastels in so the color is embedded into the surface of porcelain. It is then fixed onto the surface with regular fixative. Still, she wanted the surface to be impenetrable like a glaze. After some research, she found Liquid Quartz, made in
Australia for exactly this purpose. It creates a quartz matte barrier that roots into the surface making it waterproof and food safe

 

Pascual Arriaga
Withered, 2023
mixed media
72 x 48 x 36”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The effects of climate change, now accelerating all over the world, include unpredictable changes in rainfall patterns bringing drought, heatwaves, and flooding. This installation, Withered, refers to the physical condition of becoming weak, dry and decayed.

Major disasters and severe weather has caused over $21 billion in crop losses in 2023. As the end of 2022 neared, California was still in the grips of a devastating three-year drought, then came the rain. 2023 brought the state a deluge including 31 atmospheric storms and 1 tropical storm. Statewide precipitation was 141% of normal. The Sierra Nevada snowpack peaked at 237% of normal in April. While suddenly blessed with ample water supplies for the season, farmers and ranchers faced starkly different challenges.

As extreme weather becomes more frequent, and destructive events hit farmers harder, the impact on farming will be more and more severe. The worst effects of climate change are now bringing significant risks to farming, including unpredictable changes in temperature –both averages of extreme heat and cold, and the availability of water– the volume of precipitation, in turn, the extremes of too much destructive rain, and prolonged periods of drought.

Peter Baczek
Flying Buttress, 2022
etching
15 x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Urban Landscapes have always been a part of his vision. He chooses to depict cityscapes through a more refined interpretation of the composition before him. The elements of walls, roads, and structure establish areas of value and light that can create a certain mood, and act as compositional components in the overall work of art. By expanding his use of shadow, texture, and light, the finished work grows in both scope and spectrum to better realize that vision.

Flying Buttress exemplifies the monumental structures necessary to transport us and stands as a symbol of our mobile society. 

Peter Baczek
Structural Integrity, 2023
lithograph
10.75 x 14”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

Urban Landscapes have always been a part of his vision. He chooses to depict cityscapes through a more refined interpretation of the composition before him. The elements of walls, roads, and structure establish areas of value and light that can create a certain mood, and act as compositional components in the overall work of art. By expanding his use of shadow, texture, and light, the finished work grows in both scope and spectrum to better realize that vision.

Structural Integrity displays the complicated skeleton needed to support urban elements and displays the hidden architecture used to accomplish this. 

Peter Baczek
Iron Tree, 2024
lithograph
15 x 11”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Urban Landscapes have always been a part of his vision. He chooses to depict cityscapes through a more refined interpretation of the composition before him. The elements of walls, roads, and structure establish areas of value and light that can create a certain mood, and act as compositional components in the overall work of art. By expanding his use of shadow, texture, and light, the finished work grows in both scope and spectrum to better realize that vision.

Iron Tree compares itself to what grows in nature, this symbolic vertical trunk with limbs branching out helps to maintain itself and is integral to the other elements that surround it.

Brandin Barón
When Breath Became Air, 2020
silkscreen and relief print on parchment with mixed media
12" x 16" x 1"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
From a series of work entitled “Daydream During a Plague”, this artwork draws inspiration
from ancient Egyptian artworks, depicting plagues and destruction in reference to the
medical anxieties relating to the COVID19 pandemic crisis. All of the artworks in the series
utilize printmaking methods enhanced by the hand-application of ink and other media. When
Breath Became Air originated from printmaking experiments with an existing LDCT scan,
the clearest indicator of problems with the lungs. Part of the confounding mysteries of the
early days of COVID were the unseen effects that it has had on the lungs of sick patients. The
ability to get LDCT scans were difficult to acquire due to hospital overflow and challenges
with finding appropriate medical providers to perform tests. For this brief period, seeing the
registration of impact on the lungs seemed to be almost a godlike endeavor, not dissimilar to
the illustrated mysteries of “deathliness” that existed in the Barón’s original Egyptian source
material.

Mariona Barkus
Segregated Pollution, 2024
archival digital print
4 x 20 x 1"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
In Segregated Pollution, the image uses the well-known phrase, “No place like home” usually meaning that your home is a sanctuary –a safe haven. But the fractured letters symbolize the destruction of that refuge. The newspaper-formatted, factual text describes how low-income neighborhoods, and communities of color are targeted when industries choose locations with environmental health hazards, such as hazardous waste sites, poisonous landfills, or polluting factories to develop low-income housing. This pattern of “environmental injustice” is being investigated and addressed by the newly opened U.S Dept. of Justice’s Office of Environmental Justice.

In her activist graphic series “Illustrated Histories”, Barkus continuously alerts the viewer to stay informed, act, organize and vote wisely

 

Mariona Barkus
Artificial Intelligence, 2024
archival digital print
24 x 20 x 1"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Artificial Intelligence (aka A.I.) is an absurdist image of a gloating autonomous robot (with an Amazon “smile”, no less) reading a newspaper headlined with dire warnings about A.I. is juxtaposed with a newspaper-formatted factual text about potential risks of A.I. But what the heck is Artificial Intelligence, anyway? Among today’s most common and relatively benign uses, A.I. powers self-driving cars, translates text from one language to another, offers recommendations based on previous internet history, answers questions and solicits comments via chat bots. However, as the late Stephen Hawking cautioned in 2017,
“Unless we learn how to prepare for, and avoid, the potential risks, A.I. could be the worst event in the history of our civilization. It brings dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for the few to oppress the many. It could bring great disruption to our economy.” Fast-forward to 2023, the Center for A.I. Safety, a nonprofit organization that promotes the safe development and deployment of artificial intelligence, warned “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other
societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.” This statement was signed by more than 350 executives, researchers and engineers working in A.I. Advanced A.I. could reach “singularity” outsmarting human intelligence and leading to our collective extinction by autonomous A.I. With today’s proliferation of A.I.-generated misinformation, disinformation, and deep-fakes, perhaps the real existential danger of A.I. is reduced human empathy, compassion, reasoning, and the eroding of abilities and experiences that define being human.

In her activist graphic series “Illustrated Histories”, Barkus continuously alerts the viewer to stay informed, act, organize and vote wisely

Phoebe Barnum
Water, 2022
high-fire clay
4.75 x 7 x 4.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
This high fire ceramic piece is made using the coil method which is a process of rolling snake like coils and attaching them with slip into a spherical form. The utilization of scoring and slipping and the use of various tools create a homogeneous shape that acts as a “canvas” of sorts. When the B mix clay body is approaching a leather hard state, thick porcelain slip with grog is applied with a large brush to create layers of painterly brush strokes. Painting on clay. The piece is then bisque fired and the stain, a mixture of black Mason stain mixed with red iron is applied and then sponged off leaving highlighted texture. Then the glaze, Pumpkin, which tends to run, it adds to the randomness of the surface. The combination of the Pumpkin glaze and the warmth of the stain creates and earthly, organic topographical look, like lava flow.

“Everything came out of the clay” is a statement that completely resonates with what she has learned as she has continued exploration with this limitless medium. Over time one learns about the material, how it how acts differently in different weather conditions, how far the material can be pushed before it’s too much, but then by exploring the possibilities, a piece that seemingly defies gravity comes out of the kiln and the love affair resumes. One learns about patience and expectations, of the magic that happens when the piece has a life of its own.

Phoebe Barnum
Earth, 2022
high-fire clay
7.45 x 7.5 x 7”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Her work in clay is more visceral than intellectual, it is highly influenced by her degrees in Drawing and Painting which is seen by the numerous examples of painting on clay with glazes and stains. The possibilities are endless. Clay is a profound teacher of life lessons from the first moment in contact with a clay body to the myriad steps that can end in success or “failure”, it is all a learning process. It is also a healer as it has been through numerous physical challenges, it soothes the soul. These pieces are a series referencing technology, that of actually creating something from dirt... from hand building to glazing and firing, completely relying on science. The work also refers to topography, oceans, space, geology, and anthropology.

Phoebe Barnum
Air, 2022
high-fire clay
8.75 x 9 x 8.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Her work in clay is more visceral than intellectual, it is highly influenced by her degrees in Drawing and Painting which is seen by the numerous examples of painting on clay with glazes and stains. The possibilities are endless. Clay is a profound teacher of life lessons from the first moment in contact with a clay body to the myriad steps that can end in success or “failure”, it is all a learning process. It is also a healer as it has been through numerous physical challenges, it soothes the soul. These pieces are a series referencing technology, that of actually creating something from dirt... from hand building to glazing and firing, completely re

Andra Broekelschen
Key To The City, 2022
mosaic assemblage sculpture
57 x 34 x 10”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The themes of beach and city grids were on the artists mind while creating this specific piece. A sculpture using glass, hand made clay shells and found objects to invoke a city grid on one side and a scene reminiscent of our local beach on the opposite side. Use of repurposed metal and door handles depict a more industrial side encroaching on the idyllic beach. A local antique market find of an “old key” inspired the title. The Key to the City is a two-sided sculpture, with the open center serving for yet another view, into our uncertain future. It is a mixed media mosaic sculpture made of steel, glass, tile, ironware, beach glass, keys, glazed clay art, antique door hardware, and other found objects. The artwork is grouted and sealed and designed to be displayed outdoors.

Andra Broekelschen
Lost Totem, 2024
multi-media sculpture
54 x 11 x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The themes of beach and city grids were on the artists mind while creating this specific piece. A sculpture using glass, hand made clay shells and found objects to invoke a city grid on one side and a scene reminiscent of our local beach on the opposite side. Use of repurposed metal and door handles depict a more industrial side encroaching on the idyllic beach. A local antique market find of an “old key” inspired the title. The Key to the City is a two-sided sculpture, with the open center serving for yet another view, into our uncertain future. It is a mixed media mosaic sculpture made of steel, glass, tile, ironware, beach glass, keys, glazed clay art, antique door hardware, and other found objects. The artwork is grouted and sealed and designed to be displayed outdoors.

Fidalis Buehler
Cloud Catcher, 2024
monoprint
13 x 10"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
These artworks are manifestations of the artist’s identity visualized through the complicated lens of American culture and South Pacific traditions. The works call attention to confrontations and conflicting realities, and straddle the line between levity and earnest devotion. Image making is an act of playful conjuring—reassembling personal histories that embody fear, anxiety, dreams, revelations, magic, mysticism, and ritual. The images are essentially self-portraits that explore varied forms of expanded
and contracted narratives rooted in the blending of two cultures while cultivating a rich mythology of personal identity. These works explore the divergence/convergence between Pacific Island beliefs systems and the institutionalized science of our terrestrial environment. A shaman performs a ritual to call upon the forces of nature while science moves aggressively toward the manipulation of our environment through large-scale projects such as cloud seeding, large scale farming, reservoirs, etc. These works are prompted by the conflict, choosing the natural mystics over science.

Fidalis Buehler
Plant Devotion, 2024
monoprint
13 x 10"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
These artworks are manifestations of the artist’s identity visualized through the complicated lens of American culture and South Pacific traditions. The works call attention to confrontations and conflicting realities, and straddle the line between levity and earnest devotion. Image making is an act of playful conjuring—reassembling personal histories that embody fear, anxiety, dreams, revelations, magic, mysticism, and ritual. The images are essentially self-portraits that explore varied forms of expanded
and contracted narratives rooted in the blending of two cultures while cultivating a rich mythology of personal identity. These works explore the divergence/convergence between Pacific Island beliefs systems and the institutionalized science of our terrestrial environment. A shaman performs a ritual to call upon the forces of nature while science moves aggressively toward the manipulation of our environment through large-scale projects such as cloud seeding, large scale farming, reservoirs, etc. These works are prompted by the conflict, choosing the natural mystics over science.

Fidalis Buehler
Fire Starter, 2024
monoprint
13 x 10"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
These artworks are manifestations of the artist’s identity visualized through the complicated lens of American culture and South Pacific traditions. The works call attention to confrontations and conflicting realities, and straddle the line between levity and earnest devotion. Image making is an act of playful conjuring—reassembling personal histories that embody fear, anxiety, dreams, revelations, magic, mysticism, and ritual. The images are essentially self-portraits that explore varied forms of expanded
and contracted narratives rooted in the blending of two cultures while cultivating a rich mythology of personal identity. These works explore the divergence/convergence between Pacific Island beliefs systems and the institutionalized science of our terrestrial environment. A shaman performs a ritual to call upon the forces of nature while science moves aggressively toward the manipulation of our environment through large-scale projects such as cloud seeding, large scale farming, reservoirs, etc. These works are prompted by the conflict, choosing the natural mystics over science.

Fidalis Buehler
Rain Dance, 2024
monoprint
13 x 10"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
These artworks are manifestations of the artist’s identity visualized through the complicated lens of American culture and South Pacific traditions. The works call attention to confrontations and conflicting realities, and straddle the line between levity and earnest devotion. Image making is an act of playful conjuring—reassembling personal histories that embody fear, anxiety, dreams, revelations, magic, mysticism, and ritual. The images are essentially self-portraits that explore varied forms of expanded
and contracted narratives rooted in the blending of two cultures while cultivating a rich mythology of personal identity. These works explore the divergence/convergence between Pacific Island beliefs systems and the institutionalized science of our terrestrial environment. A shaman performs a ritual to call upon the forces of nature while science moves aggressively toward the manipulation of our environment through large-scale projects such as cloud seeding, large scale farming, reservoirs, etc. These works are prompted by the conflict, choosing the natural mystics over science.

Kyle Chaput
East Bay Site II, 2022
lithograph & screenprint
22 x 15"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Chaput’s artwork is an attempt to reveal internal struggles with a chronic illness while referencing chaotic, often conflicting aspects of ‘border’ life. These aberrant sites and abandoned still lives reflect a broken condition within an alienated community, the Rio Grande Valley on the US/Mexico border. The manifestations of these vessels tend to pierce through subconscious thoughts, forcing us to continually question our sense of place and inner stability.

Kyle Chaput
SoNo Site I-I, 2023
lithograph & screenprint
20 x 15"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Chaput’s artwork is an attempt to reveal internal struggles with a chronic illness while referencing chaotic, often conflicting aspects of ‘border’ life. These aberrant sites and abandoned still lives reflect a broken condition within an alienated community, the Rio Grande Valley on the US/Mexico border. The manifestations of these vessels tend to pierce through subconscious thoughts, forcing us to continually question our sense of place and inner stability.

Jaq Chartier
Study with Brown - Carmine Shifter, 2023
acrylic, inks, dyes, stains & spray paint on wood panel
8 x 8 x 2"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

Chartier has long taken inspiration from scientific and nature-based phenomenon using a methodical process with artist’s materials, such as inks and dyes, spray paint, oil and acrylic paints, stains and more. In a painstaking approach, the resulting vivid, patterned and abstract compositions are also a record of the artist’s specific observations of the material world as it relates to time and transformation. Her thought process is evidence of an artist engaged in a kind of hybrid artistic-scientific practice: on the surface, her work is seemingly more akin to laboratory trials than the methods of a traditional painter.

Chartier designs custom formulas of water soluble inks, stains and dyes, which interact with other materials in ways that traditional paint cannot. The inks bleed, shift, and migrate through other layers of paint, or change color, or even completely disappear. The off-white vertical stripes are made with various spray paints, some of which block certain inks in unpredictable ways. The paintings are tests of materials, and records of the results.

For Study with Brown → Carmine Shifter (before exposure), the artist deliberately included a few inks that are fugitive (light sensitive). As the title of the painting indicates, the artist anticipates a transformation in color in certain areas of the piece as the fragile colors react to light and change over time.

 

Chuka S Chesney
Film Bug, 2023
pen and ink, watercolor
12 x 16"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

Chesney makes very colorful and fanciful art influenced by modernist painters like Picasso, Rousseau and Matisse. As part of her creative process, Chesney sometimes combines parts of photographs into collages with figures and faces people with animals or other creatures. She’ll put a portrait of an alien-type bug in front of a movie theater in a big city. The idea of making that particular collaged composition struck her with a flood of childhood memories, and drove her to paint this composition. Chesney reveals in her writings about her artwork, that her home was highly dysfunctional, with mental illness, and physical, verbal, emotional and spiritual abuse permeating the home. Chesney’s mother and brother were respectively bipolar and schizophrenic.

The bug in Film Bug comes from her memories of her brother who hit her and locked her in the bathroom when she was only just 22 months old, resulting in traumatic memories of her leg and feet being scalded with three-degree burns. Her brother was a film major, but never earned his degree, nor worked in the film industry. The Film Bug references this incident, along with other childhood recollections of all-too-young “Rated R” movie interactions. She saw “Godzilla” on her aunt’s television when she was just three or four years old, and believed the T.V. monster was real, and was eating people in the city. The “film bug” is also reminiscent of when her parents took her to see “Night of the Living Dead” when she was only six. In her version, the giant bug stands outside the movie theater in the big city, and having escaped, is waiting out there to scare and surprise all those who encounter it.

Leon Cho
Demon Vessel: Restraint, 2023
clay
12 x 10.5 x 10.5"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement

This clay vessel titled Demon Vessel: Restraint, is part of a series of vessels that serve as tangible representations of his journey through personal insight and emotional exploration during his formative years. They are adorned with intricate textures and carvings to encapsulate the balance of serenity and chaos of his trauma. The idea behind demons in his creations references the feeling of being an outsider from the norm but still displaying the strength and resilience of a higher being. His work is most influenced by his cultural fusion of Japanese and Korean backgrounds in the Los Angeles art scene environment.

This piece was part of a series he created called “Demon Coccoons,” which are hollow vessels created with traditional coil-building methods that are meant to hold and store personal emotions and ideas within the vessel. Restraint was created in how interpersonal and cultural restrictions are placed upon us by ourselves or societal norms. The talisman on the piece is a representation of that very idea of restraint as the means to store and protect oneself from the dangers of the world. Yet restrained, the piece embodies the idea of reaching out beyond the restraints to further explore beyond the restraints placed upon us.

Tomas Co
Dark Web, 2024
ceramic sculpture
5 x 6 x 5"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Although the internet has yielded several technological advantages for improving our lifestyles, there is inevitably a darker side emanating from almost any technological advance. In the case of the world wide web, a subregion called the dark web has become a space used for illicit, illegal, and immoral activities. Although not exclusively used for these darker activities, the lack of transparency in this case offers effective tools for sinister player to threaten and harm several unwitting victims.
Dark Web is the artist’s attempt to express the interconnectedness of several dark web sites, which will introduce additional complexity, resulting in very difficult monitoring and control of these sites. The piece is sculpted from clay and then coated with graphite after it was bisque- fired. The structure shows that there is no source nor sink among the links. The graphite coat offers an image of darkness along the links. The holes are intended to enhance the feeling of complexity as well as the possibility of being trapped inside.

Tomas Co
Orbital, 2024
ceramic sculpture
3.5 x 7.5 x 8"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Although the internet has yielded several technological advantages for improving our lifestyles, there is inevitably a darker side emanating from almost any technological advance. In the case of the world wide web, a subregion called the dark web has become a space used for illicit, illegal, and immoral activities. Although not exclusively used for these darker activities, the lack of transparency in this case offers effective tools for sinister player to threaten and harm several unwitting victims.

Orbital is sculpted in clay and coated with blue pigment after it was bisque-fired. It shows an instantaneous snapshot of a particular looped path. Blue was chosen to attain a bit of fluid character of water, to hopefully transcend the stationary three-dimensional image. The ceramic material also offers a fragility of the art piece, thereby suggesting that the orbital image when applied to characterize human society may in fact yield an incorrect prediction –because orbitals could break.

Brandi Cooper
Enmeshed, 2023
porcelain, glaze, salvaged fishing net, wood, and wire
48 x 24 x 12"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
All living beings are inextricably linked to one another. Humans are entwined in this tapestry of life, yet we constantly set ourselves apart and make decisions that have devastating effects on the earth. Cooper’s work is greatly informed by her background in Zoology where she studied people’s influence on creatures and the land and is continually amazed at the resilience of nature. In this volatile time on earth, we have a responsibility to each other to build connections that will promote new ways of thriving and perishing thoughtfully. In her work, she is committed to being a bridge between the disciplines. This allows her to be a witness to and continue her investigations of human’s impact as well as celebrate nature’s capacity in her sculptures. Cooper makes sculptures and installations out of castoff materials. In a pseudo- anthropological manner, she seeks out refuse that has been left in the environment, salvages plant material and objects that are destined for the landfill and up-cycles studio waste. Discarded objects speak volumes about a culture and discovering the aesthetic potential of waste drives her process.

In Enmeshed, Cooper made slip casted, hand-built, and organic burnout porcelain organisms and embedded them into abandoned fishing gear she salvaged off the South Padre Island shoreline. In this work, she is dedicated to building awareness about the lethal impact of ghost gear and advocating for an international treaty to tackle plastic pollution.

Brandi Cooper
Rift, 2023
porcelain, salvaged, metal, and glaze
22 x 13 x 15"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
All living beings are inextricably linked to one another. Humans are entwined in this tapestry of life, yet we constantly set ourselves apart and make decisions that have devastating effects on the earth. Cooper’s work is greatly informed by her background in Zoology where she studied people’s influence on creatures and the land and is continually amazed at the resilience of nature. In this volatile time on earth, we have a responsibility to each other to build connections that will promote new ways of thriving and perishing thoughtfully. In her work, she is committed to being a bridge between the disciplines. This allows her to be a witness to and continue her investigations of human’s impact as well as celebrate nature’s capacity in her sculptures. Cooper makes sculptures and installations out of castoff materials. In a pseudo- anthropological manner, she seeks out refuse that has been left in the environment, salvages plant material and objects that are destined for the landfill and up-cycles studio waste. Discarded objects speak volumes about a culture and discovering the aesthetic potential of waste drives her process.

Layer-upon-layer, Cooper utilizes her materials to build webs of interactivity. Like the impact humans are having in this uncharted geologic era known as the Anthropocene, Rift went through dynamic and unpredictable structural changes during the firing. Rift is a record of our transgressions, reminding us of our connection and responsibility to every other living being.

Cathie Crawford
Convergence, 2022
reduction woodcut with pochoir
22 x 18"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The beauty of water and the ever-changing colors of the landscape have been a constant source of inspiration throughout Crawford’s almost forty-year concentration on the reduction woodcut. Taking a break from her more figurative work with up to 21 runs thru the press, her recent work has been a gradual transformation to a more non-objective approach to the landscape. Her woodcuts are a convergence of color, line, shape, and texture in an ambiguous space with whispers of landscape. She has been striving to pack as much color as possible in the fewest runs through the press using blended or split-fountain rolls of transparent relief inks. She prints reductively from one piece of ¼” plywood as a printing matrix on handmade Japanese Kozo paper. She also uses mylar stencils to work reductively within one shape at a time to extend the color possibilities, printing ‘pochoir’. While her art does not tend to be political, she has seen the bleaching of the coral reefs as a scuba diver. She has witnessed the disappearance of the beautiful glacier, La Mer de Glace in Chamonix, France between her first visit in 1977 and her last visit in 2004. She is very worried about the impact of fossil fuels on the environment. The warming
of the oceans will have a negative impact on this as well as future generations. She has been thinking a lot about Climate Change and her responsibility to the life of the planet the past several years. She feels Mother Earth is getting even with the pandemic for all of humanities abuses. Several of her recent prints express her concern for this environmental crisis as it affects the oceans and waterways. 

Convergence is a celebration of the life of this beautiful planet which deserves awe and respect.

Cathie Crawford
Once Upon a Glacier..., 2021
reduction woodcut with pochoir
22 x 18"
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The beauty of water and the ever-changing colors of the landscape have been a constant source of inspiration throughout Crawford’s almost forty-year concentration on the reduction woodcut. Taking a break from her more figurative work with up to 21 runs thru the press, her recent work has been a gradual transformation to a more non-objective approach to the landscape. Her woodcuts are a convergence of color, line, shape, and texture in an ambiguous space with whispers of landscape. She has been striving to pack as much color as possible in the fewest runs through the press using blended or split-fountain rolls of transparent relief inks. She prints reductively from one piece of ¼” plywood as a printing matrix on handmade Japanese Kozo paper. She also uses mylar stencils to work reductively within one shape at a time to extend the color possibilities, printing ‘pochoir’. While her art does not tend to be political, she has seen the bleaching of the coral reefs as a scuba diver. She has witnessed the disappearance of the beautiful glacier, La Mer de Glace in Chamonix, France between her first visit in 1977 and her last visit in 2004. She is very worried about the impact of fossil fuels on the environment. The warming
of the oceans will have a negative impact on this as well as future generations. She has been thinking a lot about Climate Change and her responsibility to the life of the planet the past several years. She feels Mother Earth is getting even with the pandemic for all of humanities abuses. Several of her recent prints express her concern for this environmental crisis as it affects the oceans and waterways. 

“A glacier is a climate indicator. It is also the memory of the planet and life on Earth” (from the Mer de Glace Visitors Center). Once Upon a Glacier… is a memorial to La Mer de Glace, as she remembers it from the B&W photograph she took in 1977.

Lance Dodes
Aged Structure, 2024
ceramic
8.5 x 3.5 x 3”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The works in this series speaks to both the beauty and the loss in life and in the world, as climate changes and people and things age. When structures have been created, then eroded, new entities appear; creation arises inherently from destruction. Something of the original is always lost, but the new thing is not simply diminished, it is a new birth. As a physician, Dodes has had a lot of experience seeing and participating in both loss and renewal. It has often been said that medicine is both art and science, and in his ceramic work he tries to speak to both.

Jeff Downing
Brachylagus Reliquary - Relic: Columbia River, WA, 2022
ceramics, mixed media, found objects, seeds, water
14 x 13 x 2.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Brachylagus Reliquary - Relic: Columbia River, WA is part of a series of works inspired by historical and contemporary versions of the reliquary box. Small antique apothecary bottles containing samples of dry clay and water collected from various drought-depleted lakes and rivers across the Western United
States are integrated within the diptych of forms. The water is seen as a precious relic. The work investigates biodiversity, fragile ecosystems, and critical natural habitats home to numerous threatened and endangered species. The titles of each diptych reference a specific flora or fauna. In this case, the Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit depends on the water source “relic” experiencing continual drought. This project aims to inform about drought issues and promote climate resilience, water conservation, and environmental preservation. This work invites viewers to question our perceptions of climate change, its potential impact on our lives, and how we can imagine new paradigms for adapting and coexisting on a vast landscape inevitably in flux.

Jeff Downing
Terra Metric Markers, 2020
ceramics, steel
90 x 60 x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Terra Metric Markers is designed to be installed in prominent locations prone to tidal flooding along the shoreline. The outdoor sites are chosen are guided by scientific predictions that have identified specific areas of the coast that are most vulnerable to inundation due to Sea Level Rise, King Tides, and storm surges. The performative aspect of the work is experienced by viewers passing by who happened to witness the installation and de-installation of the work in the water during the flow and ebb of the tides. This project aims to call attention to rising ocean levels, question our preconceptions of climate change, and help communities visualize the potential impact on coastal environments. The aesthetic appeal of these large-scale public sculptures that also gauge tidal levels will function as a highly noticeable document of actual inundation occurring near commercial and residential developments. By placing them on the sloping beach at different altitudes, the markers indicated where normal high tides are predicted to be from now to the year 2075. During King Tides events, the public is encouraged to take photos of the inundation around the flooded markers and post their images online through the California Coastal Commission’s King Tides Project app. This social media platform will serve as a forum for a larger national and global conversation on the issue and a record of change for future generations.

Kevin Eaton
Sacred Androids In The Great Machine, 2024
ceramic
13 x 16.5 x 16”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Sacred Androids In The Great Machine is a celebration of creative energy. The androids don’t actually move, but the fins and other details create the appearance of a dance. They search for connections between science and the higher powers of the universe.

Martin Ehrlich
Topography of an Artist’s Mind, 2024
porcelain ceramic
18.5 x 17.5 x 2.25”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Like a USGS topographical map Topography of an Artist’s Mind maps the up and down elevations of an artists inspiration. There are many stops and starts along the way to a finished work, which
represents the artist’s constant labor of thought when creating work.

FIRE + WATER + CLAY = CERAMICS

Water is used to blend the clay to a usable consistency, provide lubrication for throwing and cement joints when hand-building. The majority of his work is thrown on the wheel. Pieces are then pre-fire, bisque fired, to prepare them for glazing, the application of a clay, colorant, flux and glass forming mixture. A second firing melts the glaze into the surface of the piece. Some times for special results there are additional steps and firings.

Martin Ehrlich
Unknown Chest Rash, 2024
porcelain ceramic
14.5 x 14.5 x 1.75”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
In these uncertain times post-covid when everyone is on the alert, a new type of rash pattern puts all on edge. Unknown Chest Rash alludes to our current and constant concerns for the unknown and
unexpected that may arise at anytime: the human affects are both physical and mental.

FIRE + WATER + CLAY = CERAMICS

Water is used to blend the clay to a usable consistency, provide lubrication for throwing and cement joints when hand-building. The majority of his work is thrown on the wheel. Pieces are then pre-fire, bisque fired, to prepare them for glazing, the application of a clay, colorant, flux and glass forming mixture. A second firing melts the glaze into the surface of the piece. Some times for special results there are additional steps and firings.

 

Martin Ehrlich
Ocean Currents, 2024
porcelain ceramic
19 x 16 x 3.75”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Ocean Currents is a linear representation of the disruption of ocean currents due to climate change.

FIRE + WATER + CLAY = CERAMICS

Water is used to blend the clay to a usable consistency, provide lubrication for throwing and cement joints when hand-building. The majority of his work is thrown on the wheel. Pieces are then pre-fire, bisque fired, to prepare them for glazing, the application of a clay, colorant, flux and glass forming mixture. A second firing melts the glaze into the surface of the piece. Some times for special results there are additional steps and firings.

Roland Escalona
Close Quarters VI, 2021
pen and pencil drawing on archival art paper
36 x 48”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The “Close Quarters” Series encapsulates the concept of replacing compact dilapidated houses of the slums found in developing or third world countries with houses similar to the ones found in American suburban neighborhoods. This series became a visual study of what that concept would look like. For these artworks, Escalona used pen-and-ink for every single line drawn,and colored pencils for shadows and textures. In Close Quarters VI, this ink and pencil drawing depicts an controllable sprawling of a suburban neighborhood on a hill. Colorful modern architecture “hides” in the midst of all the truss-based, cookie-cutter homes, perhaps as a nod to US individualism –also a universally known construct of American culture.

Danielle Eubank
Santa Cruz Island II, 2024
oil and ink on linen
36 x 26 x 2”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The Pacific, the largest and deepest body in the world that covers three quarters of Earth’s surface is home to more than 228,000 species and millions of unknown organisms yet to be discovered. In her “Santa Cruz Island” Series, Eubank’s studies this island and the surrounding waters of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of
California. Once destroyed by invasive boar and tens of thousands of sheep, restoration of the flora and fauna of the island and its waters are ongoing under the stewardship of the National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, and the UC Santa Barbara. Santa Cruz Island II is about the interaction of humans with the natural seascape surrounding the island. There is a balance between restoring the island, which was nearly destroyed by farm animals and foreign flora ever since Europeans came to California and giving the public access. The National Park Service, who maintain about a quarter of the island, have provided modest
facilities and camping to encourage trekkers to enjoy this remote part of California. Santa Cruz Island II is a reflection of the dock at Scorpion Harbor, where most travelers access the island. The white “stripe” down the center has been brought forward into the viewer’s plane by painting it with opaque white ink that flows very much like water, to accentuate the mark of humans’ influence. While the physics of the reflection are true, the water has been painted with heightened saturation and looseness to convey the excitement of travelers exploring this part of the Pacific Ocean.

Danielle Eubank
Santa Cruz Island III, 2024
oil and ink on linen
40 x 30 x 2”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Within Santa Cruz Island III there is something apparent floating on the water’s surface. There is something underneath, too. Home to long strands of orange and green seaweed, this part of the Pacific Ocean appears pristine but daily reports of water quality, and whether or not swimmers can enter the water, are standard Organizations like Heal The Bay issue scientific reports on bacterial pollution rankings on beaches all over California. Santa Cruz Island III is about all the contaminates and pollution in the water. The white spots on the painting float above the other colors and shapes. The white spots are opaque white ink spots while the rest is painted with oil paint. The orange and purple areas show where seaweed and other life underneath the water approach the surface. The viewer is encouraged to ask, “What is that white stuff on the water?” to reflect broader concerns of anyone wishing to enter California’s beaches.

Destiny Gillispie
Trilogy of Black Womanhood (1 of 3), 2024
polymer clay, wire, spray paint, acrylic
25.5 x 10 x 7”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
This sculpture is one part of a set of three titled Trilogy of Black Womanhood. The series of sculpture intimately explores the intersection of vulnerability and strength within the black female experience. Crafted from clay, while leaving wire structure exposed, the sculpture conveys a sense of rawness, revealing the underlying emotional landscape. Sorrowful facial expression and hearts pierced depict the profound impact of societal burdens on these women’s spirits, yet, amidst the sorrow, their natural hair covered in flowers becomes a symbol of resilience, and cultural pride.

Like a “Mother Earth” or “Mother Nature” figure, the black female struggles and suffers from the environmental conditions she is placed in and exposed to, giving metaphorical meanings to the
artwork in both social and environmental contexts.

Rosemary Giusti Dillon
No One Left to Argue But the Crows, 2024
ink, wax, paper, cardboard, acrylic paint on wood boards
36 x 24 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
No One Left to Argue but the Crows is a cautionary tale for our times. It was inspired by our current political climate, and there are no winners in this argument. The tryptic is ink with wax resist figures collaged onto a plywood board. In the foreground are a murder of crows, and in the background are voyeuristic skeletal figures.

On the eve of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln beseeched the states of the South:

“We are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection...when again touched....by the better angels of our nature.”

It feels very much as if we are again in this desolate place.

Barry Goldstein
Connections & Relations, 2024
pigment ink on cellulose paper
24 x 36”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Rather than using a series of brushes, Goldstein “paints” using a mouse on a computer. Art is created using vector graphics software called Inkscape. This is not computer-generated art, nor is it A.I. assisted. Full control is maintained over every element from the initial composition to the final piece –no automatic computations are employed. The computer is used as a tool to help create and replicate lines, curves, shading, colors, etc. My objective is not to replicate existing art on a computer, but to showcase how a computer controlled by an artist can further enhance art creation.

After studying moire patterns, Connections & Relations was created. Rather than random patterns created by a computer, each line was drawn by hand (using a mouse). Lines have slightly different thicknesses and color variations to further accentuate the moire pattern. The background was made to make the paper look like papyrus or a bark background. A single print is generated with pigment ink on all cotton paper.

Barry Goldstein
Astroscape #2 - Double Footprint from the Astroscape Series, 2024
ink on paper made from cellulose fibers
24 x 24”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Rather than using a series of brushes, Goldstein “paints” using a mouse on a computer. Art is created using vector graphics software called Inkscape. This is not computer-generated art, nor is it A.I. assisted. Full control is maintained over every element from the initial composition to the final piece –no automatic computations are employed. The computer is used as a tool to help create and replicate lines, curves, shading, colors, etc. My objective is not to replicate existing art on a computer, but to showcase how a computer controlled by an artist can further enhance art creation.

Astroscape #2 is part of Goldstein’s “Astroscape Series” –inspired by images from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes. Rather than painting directly from the photographs, Goldstein uses them as inspiration showing the energy and power which exist in other galaxies. Astroscape #2 was printed with pigment ink on paper made from cellulose fibers– manufactured by Hahnemuhle in Germany. A single print was made in a double footprint format.

Jessica Gondek
Hand’s Master-Master’s Hand, 2020
relief and digital print
24 x 18”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Gondek’s work endeavors to blur the distinction between hand and machine, a balance akin to the relationship between art and science. This work is a nod to the early 20th century Dada movement engaged with machinery and manufactured items. In 1916 Marcel Duchamp coined the term “readymades”, elevating mass-produced objects to the status of art. Of special note is Man Ray’s “The Gift” created in 1921, a sculpture of an everyday flat iron modified with brass tacks adhered to the iron’s sole plate. This transformation subverted the iron’s intended function to smooth clothing.

As an artist, Gondek continues building on this tradition to bring it into the digital era of the 21st century as our relationship with technology continues to evolve. She uses both mechanical and “by-hand” methodology in the production of my work. The resulting objects in these prints are transformed and animated, casting-off their intended function, and challenging our knowledge and expectations of them.

Lynette K Henderson
African Dog with Face Wound, 2024
ink and acrylic on paper
22 x 30”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Motivated by a fascination with the natural world, these artworks feature a variety of animals as subject matter. Henderson often selects animals to work with as painting challenges, delving into the intricate details of individuals –examining anatomy, colors, textures, and patterns. This ink drawing is focused on the structure and forms of each unique species, based on photos taken by the artist.

Conceptually, humans tend to project themselves and their desired or imagined characteristics and emotions onto animals. Preserved in zoos, common to both rural and urban environments, the animals are considered by visitors to be either extraordinary, as pests or even despised rather than admirable, based on human perceptions and imaginings of the value of different species. Henderson seeks to challenge these and other romantic notions about nature within herself and as well as other viewers.

Steve Hilton
Tea for 25, 2024
ceramic
48 x 48 x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The artwork Tea for 25 consists of a seemingly simple arrangement of twenty-five teapots, which, upon initial observation, may evoke connections to the -ology of geology, especially given my background in Environmental Geology. However, the more significant concept lies in the mathematics governing the positioning of these teapots, which appear to be in conversation with each other.

Whether it’s twenty-five teapots adorning a wall, a congregation of three hundred and seven individuals within a movie theater, or one thousand and twenty-two wildebeests roaming the Serengeti plains, the mathematical principles dictating their proximity to each other exhibits a self-similarity described by the equation x(n)=x(n1)+c.

Moreover, the relevance extends beyond the arrangement to the broader context of population dynamics. As our planet’s population burgeons, this self-similarity implies an exponential increase in resource consumption, with each subsequent iteration needing the resources equivalent to the cumulative sum of all previous iterations.

Yuji Hiratsuka
Floral Muse, 2023
intaglio and Chine-collé
16 x 11”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Although his artwork is mainly considered representational, He deals with more metaphorical aspects rather than realistic physical evidence. The human body along with other elements: garments, fruit, vegetables, furniture, animals, etc. have been his focus. The images bear a slight resemblance to traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, but also express contemporary aspects of the Western Hemisphere. There are small transitions in his work from time to time, and his interest is always based on unpredictable texture that is printed from the etched surface of the copper plate. His prints explore the complex relationship of paper, ink and etched plates to describe his thought, as well as the relationship which occurs between figures and space to express other human experiences. The enigmatic figures he draws are reflections of human conditions such as; wry, satire, whimsy, irony, paradox or the mismatches that happen often in
people’s daily lives. His figures also employ a state of motion or movement suggesting an actor/actress who narrates a story in a play. The images in his intaglio prints are little figurines in action. They are cheerful, joyous and restless. They are all happy people.

Yuji Hiratsuka
Tangled Red String, 2024
intaglio and Chine-collé
18 x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Although his artwork is mainly considered representational, He deals with more metaphorical aspects rather than realistic physical evidence. The human body along with other elements: garments, fruit, vegetables, furniture, animals, etc. have been his focus. The images bear a slight resemblance to traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, but also express contemporary aspects of the Western Hemisphere. There are small transitions in his work from time to time, and his interest is always based on unpredictable texture that is printed from the etched surface of the copper plate. His prints explore the complex relationship of paper, ink and etched plates to describe his thought, as well as the relationship which occurs between figures and space to express other human experiences. The enigmatic figures he draws are reflections of human conditions such as; wry, satire, whimsy, irony, paradox or the mismatches that happen often in
people’s daily lives. His figures also employ a state of motion or movement suggesting an actor/actress who narrates a story in a play. The images in his intaglio prints are little figurines in action. They are cheerful, joyous and restless. They are all happy people.

Yuji Hiratsuka
Flower Eye, 2024
intaglio and Chine-collé
16 x 11”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Although his artwork is mainly considered representational, He deals with more metaphorical aspects rather than realistic physical evidence. The human body along with other elements: garments, fruit, vegetables, furniture, animals, etc. have been his focus. The images bear a slight resemblance to traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, but also express contemporary aspects of the Western Hemisphere. There are small transitions in his work from time to time, and his interest is always based on unpredictable texture that is printed from the etched surface of the copper plate. His prints explore the complex relationship of paper, ink and etched plates to describe his thought, as well as the relationship which occurs between figures and space to express other human experiences. The enigmatic figures he draws are reflections of human conditions such as; wry, satire, whimsy, irony, paradox or the mismatches that happen often in
people’s daily lives. His figures also employ a state of motion or movement suggesting an actor/actress who narrates a story in a play. The images in his intaglio prints are little figurines in action. They are cheerful, joyous and restless. They are all happy people.

Stephen Horn
Dark Matter Circles #1, 2023
stoneware paper clay, fired, cone 6
9.5 x 10”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Art is science and science is art. The two disciplines are inseparable. Both requiring creativity, practice, experimentation, intuition and most importantly a willingness to explore the nature of our world and our existence. Both disciplines find patterns and forms and search for meaning. We make art to understand that which cannot be expressed in language and through art we draw inspiration from science. Complexity and surprise are built into the ceramic medium. The process and technology require not only maker skills, but also a thorough knowledge of clay, glazes and firing techniques. Working with clay, one can become a materials scientist.

Dark Matter Circles #1 references matter and energy that does not interact with electromagnetic force. Dark matter does not absorb or emit light. Ironically this visual interpretation uses a visual doppler effect to portray dark matter.

Stephen Horn
Infinitesimal Angular Displacement, 2023
stoneware paper clay, fired, cone 6
10.5 x 9”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Art is science and science is art. The two disciplines are inseparable. Both requiring creativity, practice, experimentation, intuition and most importantly a willingness to explore the nature of our world and our existence. Both disciplines find patterns and forms and search for meaning. We make art to understand that which cannot be expressed in language and through art we draw inspiration from science. Complexity and surprise are built into the ceramic medium. The process and technology require not only maker skills, but also a thorough knowledge of clay, glazes and firing techniques. Working with clay, one can become a materials scientist.

Infinitesimal Angular Displacement is an imagined look at the moment of creation. That which is infinitely small, becomes that which is infinitely large.

Stephen Horn
Cloud Chamber #1, 2023
stoneware paper clay
13 x 9”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Art is science and science is art. The two disciplines are inseparable. Both requiring creativity, practice, experimentation, intuition and most importantly a willingness to explore the nature of our world and our existence. Both disciplines find patterns and forms and search for meaning. We make art to understand that which cannot be expressed in language and through art we draw inspiration from science. Complexity and surprise are built into the ceramic medium. The process and technology require not only maker skills, but also a thorough knowledge of clay, glazes and firing techniques. Working with clay, one can become a materials scientist.

In Cloud Chamber #1, ordered and chaotic patterns and archetypes resemble particle trails produced in a cloud chamber.

Stanton Hunter
Pandemic Still Life, 2023
ceramic
14 x 36 x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Hunter’s introduction and initial love of ceramics centered around the vessel, both functional and as art object. The satisfaction of making something useful, the intimacy of these objects with hands and mouths, the never-ending contemplation of form and ergonomics, where design and sustenance intersect– all of this will never grow old for him.

Pandemic Still Life is a cocoon and a sort of primal generic pot as metaphor for the incubation quality of the downtime/”lost time” during the 2020 COVID shutdown.

Stanton Hunter
Home, 2024
ceramic
11 x 22 x 10”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Foreground and background aren’t usually a topic of three-dimensional work, and Stanton Hunter finds it invigorating to explore this connection between art and where it’s shown, how each might transform the other, as well as the larger field it refers to.

Home, an example of the artist’s “Intimate Corners” series, depicts a chaotic composition of geometic tubulular shapes, broken at angles with small house shaped structures floating in the mayhem. For Hunter, this 2-piece sculpture is a response to the current world chaos in which we live.

Stanton Hunter
Migration Grid 32 (Extinction), 2024
ceramic
8.5 x 7 x 9”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
In graduate school Stanton Hunter started exploring groupings, installations, and especially site-specific installations. These inquiries triggered in him a somatic awareness of space/ environment, and a sense of wonder. He began placing work in a way where a gallery remained a gallery, a hallway a hallway, or a field a field, but suggested an overlay of another time, place, or occurrence. It felt powerful, and a bit theatrical.

Migration Grid 32 (Extinction) is a smaller assemblage from the latest in the “Monarch Butterfly Migration Grid” series which includes several large-scale installation works, and based on research that found butterflies migrate by following ultraviolet geometric grids of light.

David Hylton
Requiem for the Bee, 2024
acrylic, ink, resin, bee on canvas
36 x 36 x 2”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The painting Requiem for the Bee was created to draw attention to Colony Collapse Disorder and the fact that bees are dying at record rates, putting our food supply at serious risk. The image depicts a hapless bee that long ago landed onto a sticky globule of resin and became trapped. Over time, the bee was entombed in amber as its barren, moldering beehive fossilized around it. Taunted by a fertile flower in the upper left corner of the composition, the immobilized bee was forced to stare hungrily at the dusty golden clouds of pollen drifting by as the nourishing puddle of honey beneath it began to crystallize.

Shanguo Jia
The Flow of Being, 2024
rice paper, ink
60 x 32 x 2”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
What exactly is “being”? This ancient and profound question has been explored and redefined countless times throughout the history of philosophy. Today, a Chinese artist brings us into the world of “being” with a unique approach, using art to answer this eternal inquiry. In The Flow of Being: A Dialogue Between Philosophy and Art installation piece, colored ink is frozen into the five English letters: Being. As time passes, the ice melts on rice paper, and the ink flows, clashes, and merges. This simple yet profound process stimulates our reflection on “being.” When the ice is still solid, Being exists as a tangible entity, clearly visible and perceptible, bringing with it a chilly touch. However, as time progresses, the ice melts into water, carrying the color across the rice paper, and leaving behind vivid traces. The ice vanishes, the water evaporates, but the ink marks remain. Are these marks sufficient proof of the ice’s former existence? Does being need to be seen or proven? If the ice were just colorless water, how could we prove its past existence? This question leads us to consider the philosophers’ explorations of being.

Plato divided being into the sensory world and the world of forms, while Aristotle examined the relationship between substance and essence. In modern times, Heidegger’s concept of “being there” (Dasein) revealed the temporal and dynamic nature of being. In Eastern philosophy, water holds a unique significance. Laozi said in the Tao Te Ching, “The highest good is like water. Water benefits all things without competing. It dwells in places that all disdain. Thus, it is close to the Tao.” Water’s softness, flexibility, flow, and change embody the principle of “following the natural way.” In this artwork, water-carrying color freely flows on the rice paper, leaving natural marks, perfectly illustrating this philosophy.

Rice paper itself is a cultural symbol. Soft, delicate, and highly absorbent, it is the traditional medium for Chinese calligraphy and painting. The melting of the ice on rice paper represents not only a change in the physical state but also a cultural fusion. The English letters “Being” represent Western language and culture, while the ink’s absorption into the rice paper reflects Eastern philosophical and artistic traditions. This fusion of East and West mirrors the interaction and resonance between different cultures in contemporary society.

Through this installation, the artist not only showcases the transformation of being on a visual and material level but also prompts deeper philosophical contemplation. The physical existence of the ice transitioning to water and then to traces, does this imply that the essence of being is fluid and changeable? Do traces as proof of existence mean that being must be recorded or perceived? Or does being exist independently of perception and proof? These questions encourage us to reexamine the nature of being within the realm of art. Through the imagery of water and rice paper, we see the wisdom of “following the natural way” in Eastern philosophy.

The gradual disappearance of the letters “Being” on the rice paper also leads us to profound reflections on being and time, material and immaterial, culture and philosophy. In this feast of visual and intellectual engagement, “being” is no longer an abstract philosophical concept but a tangible, perceptible, and flowing experience. Through artistic expression, the multiple dimensions of being are vividly presented, allowing us to appreciate the depth and beauty of “being” in the interplay of colors and ink. This is not only an exploration of “being” but also a dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures, a meditation on the essence of life. In the end, only the colorful traces on the rice paper remain, a testament to the ice’s former presence, and the artist’s poignant expression of the eternal theme of “being.” Through this installation, the artist guides us into the flowing world of “being,” where we experience the eternal moment in the convergence of colors and ink.

Patti Jordan
Benthic Elegies (Human Ecotone 023b), 2023
monoprint; porcelain ceramic, charcoal, graphite, putty
22 x 16 x 2”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
New Jersey shoreline’s mark on Jordan’s unconscious is indelible, and comprises the dichotomies of beauty and affliction; mesmerizing is its waxing and waning tide and the tarry, glistening residue that often draws ashore. Etched in memory, she cathartically pours and pulls ink across her surfaces. The reticulation and striations from this back-and-forth motion, “drawing,” replicate nascent experiences and often materialize through emergent benthic or pelagic forms. As this action occurs over a given duration, she employs change and transformation as a construct to later classify and categorize the works. In microbiology, the term “culture” refers to the growth of organisms. Similarly, my pouring methods and isolationist frameworks correlate to the pseudo-study of “human cultures.” These formations of self thus convey a coexistent relationship to more vital concerns, such as the vastness of our social organism. In this instance, ceramic shards allude to mollusks and crustaceans found at the water’s edge –our human ecotone.

 

Patti Jordan
Benthic Elegies (Human Ecotone 023a), 2023
ink on acrylic panel on wood; porcelain ceramic, putty
10 x 10 x 4”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
New Jersey shoreline’s mark on Jordan’s unconscious is indelible, and comprises the dichotomies of beauty and affliction; mesmerizing is its waxing and waning tide and the tarry, glistening residue that often draws ashore. Etched in memory, she cathartically pours and pulls ink across her surfaces. The reticulation and striations from this back-and-forth motion, “drawing,” replicate nascent experiences and often materialize through emergent benthic or pelagic forms. As this action occurs over a given duration, she employs change and transformation as a construct to later classify and categorize the works. In microbiology, the term “culture” refers to the growth of organisms. Similarly, my pouring methods and isolationist frameworks correlate to the pseudo-study of “human cultures.” These formations of self thus convey a coexistent relationship to more vital concerns, such as the vastness of our social organism. In this instance, ceramic shards allude to mollusks and crustaceans found at the water’s edge –our human ecotone.

 

Tim Keenan
Generator, 2024
ceramic
8 x 9 x 4”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Ceramics by their nature have always been a means of storing and preserving information for the future. These pieces are meant to convey the feeling of being ancient artifacts from a future civilization.

Tim Keenan
Tower, 2024
ceramic
4 x 5 x 4.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Ceramics by their nature have always been a means of storing and preserving information for the future. These pieces are meant to convey the feeling of being ancient artifacts from a future civilization.

Tim Keenan
Dial, 2024
ceramic
5.5 x 6 x 4.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Ceramics by their nature have always been a means of storing and preserving information for the future. These pieces are meant to convey the feeling of being ancient artifacts from a future civilization.

Shannon Keller
Cosmic Suit, 2024
ink on silk organza
7 x 30 x 14”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Deeply fascinated by the interplay between internal and external aspects of existence, Keller’s work engages in a dialogue that bridges these realms. Printmaking, with its unique qualities— such as multiples, textures, and the physical pressure that shapes the outcome—serves as a medium for exploration. The artist perceives certain images as echoes or repeating lyrics in a song, allowing for an exploration of specific motifs and themes while embracing the inherent imperfections and overlaps of the creative process.

The use of organza and other sheer materials, prized for their luminosity and transparency, becomes a conduit for the artist’s exploration of inner and outer realms. Personal iconography is woven into the reinterpretation of subjects’ ‘anatomy,’ infusing them with elements drawn from botany, animalia, mythology, cosmology, and folklore. Through her work, Keller seeks to both veil and reveal aspects of existence, inviting viewers to contemplate the complexities of the seen and unseen, the known and the mysterious. Each piece becomes a visual dialogue between different layers of reality, encouraging reflection on the interconnectedness of all things.

Marki Lenahan
Nexus, 2023
ceramic and wood
10 x 30 x 9”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Art and science have been linked together since the dawn of time. We see this representation in the “universal shapes”: circle, square, triangle, and in their three-dimensional representations as spheres, cubes and cylinders. These figures provide us with powerful symbolism and many times hidden meanings. This body of work is an exploration of one of the “five universal shapes”, the Circle, and its 3D counterpart the Sphere. The circle is seen as a symbol of completeness and wholeness, the interconnectedness of all things, and the idea that everything is part of a larger whole. From the smallest particle to the entirety of the universe, the circle and sphere offer a link between and to all that is known and unknown. Collectively, this work examines our connections and also the spaces in between.

The artwork, Nexus, is a demonstration of a link or connection, through inclusion and togetherness.

Marki Lenahan
Mono 4, 2024
ceramic and wood
6 x 6 x 4”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Art and science have been linked together since the dawn of time. We see this representation in the “universal shapes”: circle, square, triangle, and in their three-dimensional representations as spheres, cubes and cylinders. These figures provide us with powerful symbolism and many times hidden meanings. This body of work is an exploration of one of the “five universal shapes”, the Circle, and its 3D counterpart the Sphere. The circle is seen as a symbol of completeness and wholeness, the interconnectedness of all things, and the idea that everything is part of a larger whole. From the smallest particle to the entirety of the universe, the circle and sphere offer a link between and to all that is known and unknown. Collectively, this work examines our connections and also the spaces in between.

The artwork, Mono 4, captures a complete celestial body in its singularity.

Carolyn Liesy
Drizzle, 2023
relief, cyanotype, mylar, crumpled paper
45 x 23 x 3”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Drizzle is a response to the ongoing reckoning we are having with our relationship to water and the climate. We have gone from several years in which the rainfall was equivalent to a one thousand year drought. Now we find ourselves in a changing cycle of rainfall, inundated with water. All this has put us squarely into questioning not just weather but a changing climate.

The mylar is printed on both sides. The acetate cloud includes cyanotypes and printed, crushed gampi paper. The additional raindrops are printed and sewn onto the surface.

Annell Livingston
Merlin’s Garden #1793, 2019
watercolor on 300 lb. watercolor paper
30 x 22”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Merlin’s Garden #1793 is an ink and watercolor made on 300-pound weight paper. The designs are based on the Surrealist technique of “automatic drawing”, and reminiscent of insects, birds, flower petals, musical notes, or even a “new alphabet”.

Linda Lyke
Fibonacci Curve, 2022
mixed media monotype
30 x 40” / framed: 35 x 46”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Fibonacci Curve bridges the divide between art and science by highlighting how every living thing is an autonomous element in an indivisible web of life, and indeed, of sentience. As humans, we may not be able to perceive the umwelt, or sensory experience, of a coyote, a snowy owl, or a fungal network existing symbiotically with the roots of trees, but we can protect the biospheres that produce and sustain them. For each piece she makes, Lyke employs various printmaking strategies, particularly the monotype, with relief printing or etching. She discovers new methods of working while printing by responding to conditions that develop intuitively. Fibonacci Curve is the result of layering transparent oil-based ink onto several Duralar plates. This process is repeated over time to build up layers of color and imagery.

Mark Mahaffey
Mask!, 2022
vitreography: lithography ink on a recycled glass bottle
7.5 x 4.5 x .5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Gasp and Mask! were made in response to the lack or quality of air and the use of face coverings. Both were created in 2022 during the pandemic using recycled glass and Harvey Littleton’s vitreography process along with Dwight Pogue’s positive emulsion. Images are developed and rolled up in lithography ink using
siligraphy. Siligraphy is a waterless printmaking process based on the repellence of ink and silicone. The image is created using water soluble materials on ground glass. The surface is then coated with silicone, covering the non-printing areas of the image and leaving the exposed areas to be coated in ink applied with
a roller.

Mark Mahaffey
Gasp, 2022
vitreography: lithography ink on a recycled glass bottle
12.75 x 8 x .75”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Gasp and Mask! were made in response to the lack or quality of air and the use of face coverings. Both were created in 2022 during the pandemic using recycled glass and Harvey Littleton’s vitreography process along with Dwight Pogue’s positive emulsion. Images are developed and rolled up in lithography ink using
siligraphy. Siligraphy is a waterless printmaking process based on the repellence of ink and silicone. The image is created using water soluble materials on ground glass. The surface is then coated with silicone, covering the non-printing areas of the image and leaving the exposed areas to be coated in ink applied with
a roller.

Shahin Massoudi
Mehr 1, 2023
clay ceramic
18 x 16.25 x 3”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Mehr is a hand-built architectural ceramic sculpture/vessel, which has been engraved with a Rumi’s poem in calligraphy on the surface. The meaning of the poetry translated to:

“In this earth,
In this pure field,
let us not plant anything but love and kindness.”

Nathan Meltz
Golem 2, 2023
cyanotype with screenprinted red clay and screenprinted acry
40 x 26”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The artist’s current body of work, The Golem Smashes All Walls, is part of a series re-envisioning the mythical Jewish Golem across varied print media. Manufactured out of clay and sorcery in the 16th century, the original golem Yosef set out to protect the persecuted Jews of Prague. If the Golem is a magic automaton summoned to protect the disenfranchised, where would a 21st Golem manifest? Who would he protect? This series investigates the role of technology in colonialism, oppression, and protest through printmaking and clay.

Part critique, part fascination, the artist creates examinations of the infiltration of technology into every facet of life, from family and food to politics and war. Nightmarish industrial creations are set against images of grand mechanical constructions, an off-kilter vision of technology. In the artist’s visual vocabulary, the contemporary world of nanotechnology and genetic modification is retrofitted with collaged analog machine parts. Collages of mechanical humanoids and animals turn into printmaking, animation, and sculpture, as the artist creates visual narratives telling the story of a doomed robotic populace in a techno-dystopia.

Part of a larger series titled, The Golem Smashes All Walls, where Golem portrays his hatred of
boarder walls, partitions, and artifacts of colonization, Golem 2 is a combination of cyanotype
and screen-printed red clay, imaging the mythical Golem as an automaton fabricated from clay
and circuitry.

Nathan Meltz
The Golem Smashes All Walls, 2023
screenprint
26 x 40”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The artist’s current body of work, The Golem Smashes All Walls, is part of a series re-envisioning the mythical Jewish Golem across varied print media. Manufactured out of clay and sorcery in the 16th century, the original golem Yosef set out to protect the persecuted Jews of Prague. If the Golem is a magic automaton summoned to protect the disenfranchised, where would a 21st Golem manifest? Who would he protect? This series investigates the role of technology in colonialism, oppression, and protest through printmaking and clay.

Part critique, part fascination, the artist creates examinations of the infiltration of technology into every facet of life, from family and food to politics and war. Nightmarish industrial creations are set against images of grand mechanical constructions, an off-kilter vision of technology. In the artist’s visual vocabulary, the contemporary world of nanotechnology and genetic modification is retrofitted with collaged analog machine parts. Collages of mechanical humanoids and animals turn into printmaking, animation, and sculpture, as the artist creates visual narratives telling the story of a doomed robotic populace in a techno-dystopia.

Part of a larger series titled, The Golem Smashes All Walls, where Golem portrays his hatred of
boarder walls, partitions, and artifacts of colonization, Golem 2 is a combination of cyanotype
and screen-printed red clay, imaging the mythical Golem as an automaton fabricated from clay
and circuitry.

Tamar Michaeli
Turquoise Brain, 2020
porcelain
10 x 7 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Working with clay is a passion that is a major part of this artist’s being. This work explores worlds of past and present experiences –both hidden and openly accessible, both visual and emotional– as they mysteriously take form and shape in the artist’s hands. Touching clay, this impressionable material, is stepping into a world of infinite possibilities as the artist’s fingertips discover and fashion it; A way to reach and capture momentary experiences and lasting perceptions of resonance; A way of working with four elements essential for life –earth, water, fire and air.

Michaeli’s years spent hiking and discovering the natural world emerge as hills, or waves, as other curves and slopes of note, or living organisms. Learning and living the landscapes and histories of different countries and terrains conjure symbols of different worlds and times. His years of scientific research surface in images of biological lifeforms –sub-cellular niches of beauty and complex structures.

Turquoise Brain, Ganglia and Vertebrate are abstract works from the artist’s neuronal series. Vertebrate resembles a spinal cord vertebrate structure. Like clay, the brain is highly impressionable, bearing the marks of every touch, event, emotion and feeling, thoughts and dreams of a life. The artist’s series of neuronal works in clay bear the impressions of the brain’s beauty, plasticity and centrality to life. Underlying this “Neuronal Series” is its interconnectivity, an intertwined neural network that is a hallmark of the brain’s structure and function.

Tamar Michaeli
Ganglia, 2020
porcelain
10.5 x 7.25 x 0.75”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Working with clay is a passion that is a major part of this artist’s being. This work explores worlds of past and present experiences –both hidden and openly accessible, both visual and emotional– as they mysteriously take form and shape in the artist’s hands. Touching clay, this impressionable material, is stepping into a world of infinite possibilities as the artist’s fingertips discover and fashion it; A way to reach and capture momentary experiences and lasting perceptions of resonance; A way of working with four elements essential for life –earth, water, fire and air.

Michaeli’s years spent hiking and discovering the natural world emerge as hills, or waves, as other curves and slopes of note, or living organisms. Learning and living the landscapes and histories of different countries and terrains conjure symbols of different worlds and times. His years of scientific research surface in images of biological lifeforms –sub-cellular niches of beauty and complex structures.

Turquoise Brain, Ganglia and Vertebrate are abstract works from the artist’s neuronal series. Vertebrate resembles a spinal cord vertebrate structure. Like clay, the brain is highly impressionable, bearing the marks of every touch, event, emotion and feeling, thoughts and dreams of a life. The artist’s series of neuronal works in clay bear the impressions of the brain’s beauty, plasticity and centrality to life. Underlying this “Neuronal Series” is its interconnectivity, an intertwined neural network that is a hallmark of the brain’s structure and function.

Tamar Michaeli
Vertebrate, 2020
porcelain
11 x 6 x 0.75”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Working with clay is a passion that is a major part of this artist’s being. This work explores worlds of past and present experiences –both hidden and openly accessible, both visual and emotional– as they mysteriously take form and shape in the artist’s hands. Touching clay, this impressionable material, is stepping into a world of infinite possibilities as the artist’s fingertips discover and fashion it; A way to reach and capture momentary experiences and lasting perceptions of resonance; A way of working with four elements essential for life –earth, water, fire and air.

Michaeli’s years spent hiking and discovering the natural world emerge as hills, or waves, as other curves and slopes of note, or living organisms. Learning and living the landscapes and histories of different countries and terrains conjure symbols of different worlds and times. His years of scientific research surface in images of biological lifeforms –sub-cellular niches of beauty and complex structures.

Turquoise Brain, Ganglia and Vertebrate are abstract works from the artist’s neuronal series. Vertebrate resembles a spinal cord vertebrate structure. Like clay, the brain is highly impressionable, bearing the marks of every touch, event, emotion and feeling, thoughts and dreams of a life. The artist’s series of neuronal works in clay bear the impressions of the brain’s beauty, plasticity and centrality to life. Underlying this “Neuronal Series” is its interconnectivity, an intertwined neural network that is a hallmark of the brain’s structure and function.

Lee Middleman
Ruby Sun Flower, 2024
high-fire stoneware; wheel-thrown, hand-textured
5.75 x 8.5 x 8.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Middleman throws classic forms and uses surface textures to give them energy and vitality, resulting in art that is both pleasing and alive. He seeks to create patterns and textures that emphasize the organic interplay between order and randomness as found in Nature. Many of his pieces reflect forms in Nature and contain mathematical reflects such as the Fibonacci sequence. The tactile feel and visual look of surface textures are essential to his pieces. He creates textures by deeply impressing handmade patterns into thrown cylinders. Then, working from the inside only, he expands the cylinder to create the final form. This
technique allows the pattern to evolve as the clay twists and expands. As the pattern adjusts to the shape and function of the vessel, it becomes reflective of Nature’s adaptation to form. Middleman often further decorates pieces by hand-carving surfaces. His glazing process enhances the natural aesthetic of the order and randomness. Thinly glazed surfaces highlight the macro-patterns and reveal the stoneware clay’s micro-texture created during the expansion process. He often uses multiple glazes to intensify the dynamic tension of the surface. Spraying surfaces can also create additional color range and highlight surface
edges. His goal is to pursue the interplay of shape, surface texture, ordered patterns, and random effects so that work is created that intrigues the eye and demands to be touched. Although his work is functional, it is often prized as decorative.

Museums in China, Japan, Korea, Greece, Turkey, Slovenia, India and the United States have selected his work for their permanent collections. He has participated in over 60 national and regional competitions, 40 international group exhibitions, and coordinated workshops in Aomori, Japan, Osan, Korea and Zibo and Yixing, China. He is a Past-President of the Association of Clay and Glass Artists of California and has been elected to the International Academy of Ceramics (IAC) based in Geneva. He is a founding member of the International Ceramic Artists Association (ICAA) based in Zibo, China. He holds a PhD in Physics from Stanford University.

Vince Montague
Brain Scaffolding, 2024
ceramic
20 x 14 x 8”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The protean quality of consciousness constantly changes and adapts to new environments and new stimuli. Brain Scaffolding is a figurative piece to describe the brain as we begin to interact with artificial intelligence (A.I.). Over a lifetime of experience, trauma and learning, neural paths are built and constructed to allow us to survive. This piece is concerned with the power of the brain, its mystery, its potency and fragility.

Vince Montague
Thing Theory, 2024
ceramic
14 x 18 x 5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The triptych of these heads is based on the artist’s own poetry, Thing Theory, a series of prose poems about the nature of objects versus the nature of things. We utilize objects and things, but these objects and things also shape our experience with them. Objects and things can help us define what it means to be human or they can become land fill. They have the potential to be both necessary and unnecessary. As both a writer and a visual artist, thing theory is an exploration to think critically about ourselves, our work as makers, our understanding of our art and our connection to one another.

Kevin Moore
Poly, 2021
oil, silkscreened ink, and flashé on canvas over panel
48 x 48 x 2”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Moore’s work is predicated on questing the nature of dimensional space using advanced software. Each painting is a flattened out computer modeled three-dimensional wireframe. The resulting piece is not a self-contained illusion for the viewer to project a visual expectation, it is an integration of technology, geometry, and space that creates a subtle interaction with the surrounding environment. Layering colors and painted boundaries challenge the properties of two-dimensional and three-dimensional space.

Moore seeks autonomous geometric forms inserted a priori in the mind and not derived from the outside world. He is searching out new spaces and new forms with a transitive stylistic purity based in the pleasure of the subjective.

Heather Mourer
Scalded, 2024
black stoneware clay with black glaze; dried plants only
17 x 12 x 4”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Scalded is a black ceramic sculpture addressing permanent deforestation caused by slash and burn farming to clear natural forests for agricultural use. Patches of clay represent agricultural fields, and the chimney shape of the vessel denotes smoke caused by slash and burn practices.

Janice Nakashima
Nocturne 1, 2022
mulberry paper, tissue, gel medium, ink
70 x 37 x .3”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Janice Nakashima, a third generation Japanese American artist has been grappling with issues in society of refugees and unhoused people, and, also the inner work of connections to beauty in music and the visual arts. A series she named Opus came out of feelings of keen disillusionment after the 2016 elections. Part of the solace that she found was in music, so she began to connect themes and forms found in music and put them into this series. Ink and medium on translucent mulberry and tissue papers are how these paintings are constructed. The paintings have shapes, colors, and rythyms that connect to the of ideas of music, mood and time.

Janet A Neuwalder
Shikata Ga Nai / It Cannot Be Helped, 2023
glazed clay installation
dimsensions variable
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The artist’s mother and relatives were incarcerated at the Topaz WWII Japanese American internment camp in Delta, Utah from 1942-1945. As a child, she used to look at the pins in her mother’s jewelry box made from shells collected in that harsh desert, which was the site of an ancient seabed. These shells, artifacts
from millenia ago, were collected by the internees and turned into handicrafts, known as the art of Gaman (which means persevere). Shikata Gai Nai / It Cannot Be Helped was the response by the internees to the injustice of their incarceration after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It signifies that one cannot control what
happened, but could control the good they made out of it.

Visiting the site and walking the former streets of the camp, the shells are plentiful. Each shell is a little beacon, a reminder of the beauty and potential of the smallest thing. They must have been seeds of hope in that barren desert. Created in community, the Gaman pins have a tender beauty and humanity that contrasts with the harshness of their conditions.

In this artwork, each hand-pinched shell represents a person (“resident”) of the camp. 11,000 “residents” were processed through Topaz. Priior iterations of the installation included 3500 shells. To date, the artist has created 7500, and the installation changes and grows wiht each new iteration. As the artist pinches each shell, as individuals and “families”, she is encoding her humanity with geologic time, just as the Neolithic potters did as they created vessels. Anthropologists confirm the human desire for creation and meaning with what is left behind. The shells remain as contemporary fossils, storytellers and keepers of history.

Janet A Neuwalder
Topaz, 2023
installation: clay, wood, rice, wood table
8 x 96 x 48”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Topaz is a reimagined topographical cityscape of what is left at the historic Topaz Japanese American WWII Confinement Site in Delta, Utah. Topaz was one of 10 identical camps across the country which were hastily constructed in the form of army barracks, based on a footprint that the War Relocation Authority designed for efficiency and minimal expense. The structure of the camps resembled the machine-like-process of dehumanization of the Japanese American people, in a blanket persecution of the entire race. The foundations are like skeletal remains with traces of broken human artifacts like teapots, pieces of metal and barbed wire. Like fossils or skeletons, some have deteriorated while others have been revealed by the wind and harsh elements.

This is not an ancient site but it resembles other ancient sites, as if in cruel recognition of what happened there. When the artist visited Topaz, she viewed it from the perspective of anarchaeologist, but also with awareness and the direct experience of seeing where her family had lived. She had knowledge of what had been uncovered over the years –her grandfather was an engineer and he led crews to build the barracks before being incarcerated. Standing in the remnants of the camp, she experienced the fruits of his labor –his legacy– directly. The act of making this artwork and having been there makes the history more concrete. What is left does not look like much but it is all encoded there. The humanity, sweat, perseverance and resilience is all there in these bones. They speak for themselves.

 

Cyrena Nouzille
Everything But the Carbon Sink (No.2), 2023
embossed, recycled hand-pressed paper, clay slip
44 x 56 x 3”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The artist’s dimensional forms and installations combine reclaimed, natural materials with
remnants of human ingenuity to explore our fraught relationship with nature. Found objects bear
the patina of place and time, constructing a rural portrait of their coexistence, and repurposing
them acknowledges their prior service and makers.
Celebrating the biological cycles of growth and decomposition, reviving wood, metal, and
textiles provides a respite from the materials’ journey toward impermanence, fostering moments
of spontaneous interactions with tannin stains and fungal activity to highlight stages of decay.
Recycled, hand-pressed paper is embossed to record fallen vegetation and rotting wood as
residual ghosts, each step linked to the reincarnation of trees. The paper’s structural and
metaphorical fragility contradicts the architectural symbols of protection they emulate —the
bark of an oak, the bird’s nest, and a home’s fence.
The work is a response to the overconsumption of natural resources and the subsequent
urgency of human-induced environmental crises and highlights their solutions.

Cyrena Nouzille
The Hidden Cost of Deforestation, 2024
recycled paper (financial statements), shredded credit cards
72 x 34 x 2”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The artist’s dimensional forms and installations combine reclaimed, natural materials with remnants of human ingenuity to explore our fraught relationship with nature. Found objects bear the patina of place and time, constructing a rural portrait of their coexistence, and repurposing them acknowledges their prior
service and makers.

Celebrating the biological cycles of growth and decomposition, reviving wood, metal, and textiles provides a respite from the materials’ journey toward impermanence, fostering moments of spontaneous interactions with tannin stains and fungal activity to highlight stages of decay. Recycled, hand-pressed paper is embossed to record fallen vegetation and rotting wood as residual ghosts, each step linked to the reincarnation of trees. The paper’s structural and metaphorical fragility contradicts the architectural symbols of protection they emulate—the bark of an oak, the bird’s nest, and a home’s fence.

The work is a response to the overconsumption of natural resources and the subsequent urgency of human-induced environmental crises and highlights their solutions.

Robin Raznick
Sleeping Beauty, 2023
ceramic, desert soil, acrylic, 8 x 38 x 28”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Although we all interpret the world from our own perspectives, there’s a shared common thread as we are all in, and of this planet. The ecology and biology of this earth is the source of true knowledge and as such the catalyst to inspire and ignite the human spirit. Everything is connected and our interdependence on each other and with the natural world is paramount for survival. Artists, scientists, and philosophers such as Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, Piet Mondrian, and Socrates and Aristotle wrote tirelessly about the power of nature to awaken the soul. Just as art is defined by the elements and principles of design, so do humans build relationships and make sense of the universe by shape, line, form, pattern, texture, movement, balance, and rhythm.

As clay is the result of the erosion of the earth and is often found in ancient riverbeds and streams, it holds the geologic memory of the earth. This amazing organic material has witnessed the flora and fauna of the ages and lends itself to sculpting imagery inspired by the natural world.

The reclining coyote figure was inspired by an article about a group of women who had volunteered for a habitat restoration project in Muir Woods, California. Clearing the brush, one of the women came across a young coyote she initially had thought sleeping, but upon investigation, found the pup had probably died of starvation. She described this beautiful creature curled into a half-moon with paws gently criss-crossed upon each other. She’d expressed a desire to offer last rights in the form of a rose water cleansing and burial on a bed of flowers. Sleeping Beauty is an homage, honoring the creature and ecosystem that creates a life, and sends it back to feed the soil.

Robin Raznick
Jill and the Babes, 2022
ceramic, desert soil, raffia grasses, feather, acrylic
17 x 33 x 18”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Although we all interpret the world from our own perspectives, there’s a shared common thread as we are all in, and of this planet. The ecology and biology of this earth is the source of true knowledge and as such the catalyst to inspire and ignite the human spirit. Everything is connected and our interdependence on each other and with the natural world is paramount for survival. Artists, scientists, and philosophers such as Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, Piet Mondrian, and Socrates and Aristotle wrote tirelessly about the power of nature to awaken the soul. Just as art is defined by the elements and principles of design, so do humans build relationships and make sense of the universe by shape, line, form, pattern, texture, movement, balance, and rhythm.

As clay is the result of the erosion of the earth and is often found in ancient riverbeds and streams, it holds the geologic memory of the earth. This amazing organic material has witnessed the flora and fauna of the ages and lends itself to sculpting imagery inspired by the natural world.

Jill and the Babes is a bit of a play on words, as Jill is clearly a Jack-rabbit. Jill stands diligently and defiantly next to her brood ready to challenge any predator. Jackrabbits give birth in shrubbery and grasses to full formed and furred babes. As herbivores, they are incredibly important to a healthy ecosystem as they prevent the overgrowth of vegetation and can even help with fire control. Jackrabbits hold spiritual importance to many indigenous peoples and are revered symbols of fertility, nurturing, and abundance.

Jamie Russom
The heart you speak of, 2024
polymer plate
4 x 4”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The heart you speak of is a piece inspired by Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun. In the novel, an artificial friend purchased for the protagonist, is asked to embody the characteristics of their human companion. Through an exchange with the protagonist’s father and her artificial friend, the complexities of the human heart are explored. The father determines that it is impossible for the artificial friend to fully learn the protagonist’s heart, describing it as a “house with many rooms.” Upon reflection of this passage, a vision for the piece The heart you speak of emerged. It is meant to illustrate the spiritual intricacies
of human consciousness as seen through the lens of the artificial friend.

Jamie Russom
Reverie I, 2023
2-color photogravure
21 x 27”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Reverie I was created in August 2023 at the Art Print Residence in Arenys de Munt, Spain, it is part of a series of experimental prints exploring the CYMK photogravure process. Variations within the series play with color and plate combinations (such as this one) to evoke a feeling of otherworldliness through its elusive, hallucinatory imagery. All initial prints pulled at Art Print Residence are considered trial proofs (or unique prints), and were meant as a color studies to determine the overall edition.

Blake Sanders
KIMBY (Knot In My Backyard), 2023
screenprint, appliqué, crochet, laser engraved linocut
56 x 48 x 4”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
KIMBY (Knot In My Backyard) encompasses the theme of a covertly, interconnected, global neighborhood as crochet roots writhe and couple the artist’s home with those of his neighbors. The bright colors and loud patterns, like in most of his work, allude to the dangerous and chaotic —though undeniably alluring— artificiality of contemporary life, where we feel at once linked to all the knowledge of the world in our pocket, and utterly isolated from humanity and the planet.

Catherine Schmid-Maybach
Driving Into Night, 2022
cone 5 clay, underglaze, litho transfer, oxides, glaze, decals
17 x 17 x 2.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Schmid-Maybach’s use of ceramic materials and techniques to layer images and patterns in multiple firings, adapts to each layer that comes out of the kiln. Without looking or composing the image, she often snaps photos while driving, without looking or composing the image. The result is often a graphic sampling of
patterns instead of pictures of specific things or places. Working in layers allows her to address moving between different realities: to present different places and times at the same time.

She grew up with two cultures encountering disparate elements and realities everywhere. Her ceramic work allows her to pull these pieces together. In these wall platters she starts with a photo laser print and applies the image to the moist clay using a litho-transfer method. Schmid-Maybach’s often uses underglaze
transfers and stencils underneath or on top of the litho- transfer. Once bisque fired she adds oxide washes, underglazes and glaze. After the piece is glaze fired, she adds black ceramic decals that are fused into the glaze surface at a lower temperature. If the piece requires it, she then adds overglazes, commercial decals
or lusters in descending temperature ranges.

Mirage and Driving into the Night represent various “earthly”, physical conditions. Both illustrate vast landscapes affected by temperature, weather conditions, light and time of day. Although the landscapes represent the vastness of nature —the sky, the desert— there is always a lingering rememnant of humankind’s imposition on nature.

Catherine Schmid-Maybach
Mirage, 2023
cone 5 clay, litho-transfer, oxides, underglaze, glaze, overglaze
16.5 x 16.5 x 2.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Schmid-Maybach’s use of ceramic materials and techniques to layer images and patterns in multiple firings, adapts to each layer that comes out of the kiln. Without looking or composing the image, she often snaps photos while driving, without looking or composing the image. The result is often a graphic sampling of
patterns instead of pictures of specific things or places. Working in layers allows her to address moving between different realities: to present different places and times at the same time.

She grew up with two cultures encountering disparate elements and realities everywhere. Her ceramic work allows her to pull these pieces together. In these wall platters she starts with a photo laser print and applies the image to the moist clay using a litho-transfer method. Schmid-Maybach’s often uses underglaze
transfers and stencils underneath or on top of the litho- transfer. Once bisque fired she adds oxide washes, underglazes and glaze. After the piece is glaze fired, she adds black ceramic decals that are fused into the glaze surface at a lower temperature. If the piece requires it, she then adds overglazes, commercial decals
or lusters in descending temperature ranges.

Mirage and Driving into the Night represent various “earthly”, physical conditions. Both illustrate vast landscapes affected by temperature, weather conditions, light and time of day. Although the landscapes represent the vastness of nature —the sky, the desert— there is always a lingering rememnant of humankind’s imposition on nature.

Catherine Schmid-Maybach
Linea, 2022
cone 5 clay, underglaze, litho transfer, oxides, glaze, decals
17 x 17 x 2.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Schmid-Maybach’s use of ceramic materials and techniques to layer images and patterns in multiple firings, adapts to each layer that comes out of the kiln. Without looking or composing the image, she often snaps photos while driving, without looking or composing the image. The result is often a graphic sampling of
patterns instead of pictures of specific things or places. Working in layers allows her to address moving between different realities: to present different places and times at the same time.

She grew up with two cultures encountering disparate elements and realities everywhere. Her ceramic work allows her to pull these pieces together. In these wall platters she starts with a photo laser print and applies the image to the moist clay using a litho-transfer method. Schmid-Maybach’s often uses underglaze
transfers and stencils underneath or on top of the litho- transfer. Once bisque fired she adds oxide washes, underglazes and glaze. After the piece is glaze fired, she adds black ceramic decals that are fused into the glaze surface at a lower temperature. If the piece requires it, she then adds overglazes, commercial decals
or lusters in descending temperature ranges.

Linea represents a city street in Cuba, in her husband’s hometown. The crowded, hustle and bustle of the urban lanscape is palpable, while over-layered with an accutely accurate depiction of a human heart, straight out of a medical textbook. The meaning can metaphorically allude to the “heart of the city”, or perhaps even the love one has for their own hometown. Alternately, the stress of a busy city, its traffic, pollution and mayhem can also be detrimanetal to the human heart and its condition.

Roxanne Sexauer
No Echo 3, 2022
relief print
22.5 x 16 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The relief print No Echo 3 clearly evinces influences of earlier prints made to depict various branches of both animal and plant kingdoms, especially the early woodcuts of Conrad Gessner (Sea Monsters, Crabs and Porcupines from his Icones Animalium,1560), Ernst Haeckel’s lithographic prints of medusae from 1887, and other early graphics of animal bones and anatomy.

This multi-layered work, while resisting the pull of twenty-first century technologies, manages to straddle a hybridity between abstraction and naturalism. The carved suggestion of the brayer’s mark is juxtaposed with the literal matter on the forest floor... animal antlers and pinecones. The former are both shed naturally
or taken as trophy, as they themselves serve as formidable weapons to protect physical boundaries.

A blood red antler arches protectively over a pinecone, yet another powerful symbol of regeneration. The lure of the West is the seduction of the wild, implied in this work. The sympathetic use of relief printmaking to forward this theme is particularly apt, as there is a chain that links the fecund earth, the tree, the pinecone, the timber and finally, the paper the image is printed upon. The choice of hues is resonant with both vitality and sacrifice –the title indicating what, in the end, is left behind.

Roxanne Sexauer
Cotinis Mutabilis/Frond, 2024
woodcut, traced monotype, Chine collé, printed organic matter
14 x 11 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Much of the printed work Cotinis Mutabilis/Frond is based on direct observational drawings of found materials, or in the words of artist/wood-worker Fred Rose: “The sticks your dogs wouldn’t chase.”

This work is an amalgam of traced monotype, printed organic material and woodcut, that was inspired by California’s flora and fauna. It’s printed on both Asian and western papers. Fire and water, earth and air, are suggested by the subtle color palette of the monotype, which serves as a substrate to the voice of
the woodcut. Anyone who carves into wood may experience a measure of empathy with the unwitting matrix. We frequently come across trees that are carved (or tagged) by humans that may be haplessly unaware of the damage caused to the tree by compulsive acts of “commemoration.”

Interestingly, bark beetles and other insect larvae also create distinctive and equally destructive tunnels into wood, known as galleries. The larval or grub form depicted here is of the Figeater Beetle - Cotinis Mutabilis, dug up from the ground. Amazingly, these larvae can both move and dig with agility, propelling themselves by stiff hairy structures on their back. In this inchoate state, they poetically present themselves as a letter form, or perhaps as a victory wreath. They transform from this grub state into the most iridescent of scrab beetles, albeit the most inept flyers. In the print the suggestion of their life cycle is made apparent by the organic, inverted half-circle above the larva itself.

Howard Steenwyk
Mayhem, 2023
screen print on canvas
28 x 18.5 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
In Mayhem absorptive filters restrict light of a specific color to pass through the filter. Viewing this piece through the supplied colored filters deconstruct the piece revealing the individual components. The general appearance Steenwyk’s artwork reflects the conflict between ourselves and our obsessions.

By juxtaposing the two well-known figures, one surmises both their similarities, as well as their obvious differences.

Howard Steenwyk
Untitled, 2023
screenprint on canvas
28.5 x 19 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Untitled is a grid of circles over a portrait dehumanizes the subject creating a mechanized representation of a human. This image is an analogy for technologies that mimic a human’s qualities or appearance, such as A.I., Chat GPT and the use of artificial body parts, as well as facial recognition and surveillance technologies.

Meriel Stern
Accretion, 2024
Grolleg porcelain, Mason stains, graphite, chalk paint
96 x 96 x 4”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Accretion is defined as “a gradual process in which layers of a material are formed as small amounts are added over time”, but can also be used figuratively to mean “the gradual building of detail that creates a complex and moving story.” Another definition is “of something that has grown or accumulated slowly, such as knowledge, a product, or as a result of gradual growth, or in Stern’s personal case, experience over many years of working with specific materials and ideas. Why things take the shapes they do, and what different materials, choices, conditions and experiences affect those shapes are questuions she seeks answers to.

Stern’s artworks look to nature; She studies botany, geology, anatomy of growing things for inspiration as well as human-made items that mimic nature. Early on in her art-making she was influenced by the writings of D’arcy Wentworth Thompson, a 19th century biologist and mathematician. His 1917 book “On Growth and Form”, led the way for the scientific explanation of morphogenesis, the process by which patterns and body structures are formed in plants and animals. While Stern works on her art she studies the way things grow and change into various shapes and sizes, and why they become more or less attractive. She wonders about how much control is possible, given the limitations of her source material. As she works, she reacts to what is happening and makes adjustments to make a more pleasing form.

Her work is constructed with a particular gauge and length of wire or string, and as she works, she recognizes the possible variations that may yield. With crochet, as with many other systems, changes are simply a matter of an increase or decrease in the number of units —in this case “loops”. There is contraction or expansion, continued mathematically within a certain range. She works around and around, over and over. So much of our daily lives consist of repetitive tasks. This repetition can seem monotonous, but does have its benefits. While Stern is working on a piece she notices her feelings fluctuating between impatience to see the thing done, and the freedom of forgetfulness. All that is required of her at that moment is to continue until she reaches a point that is visually pleasing. For her it is pleasing to know that her forms are basically created from one strand of wire or cord, and that one string, or chain, can become a form that has so many different associations. Our bodies: skin, fat, hair and bone, sex, foods, plants, and fetishistic attachments are all things she contemplates while working on sculpture. She recognizes these shapes have evolved over thousands of years, and she tries to push and play with forms beyond their function.

Carolyn Sweeney
Coalesce, 2023
foraged earth pigments, plant ink, soy wax, egg tempera
13.5 x 13.5 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Coalesce was made with all natural materials gathered in Oregon. The background is a red Oregon clay, the yellow is an egg tempera with Oregon yellow ochre and a lake pigment made from rabbitbrush flowers gathered in Central Oregon. The blue is an imprint of wet privet berries picked next to my house. All of the materials other than the paper are handmade by the artist. This work is a guidebook to everyday abundance using natural pigments gathered from neighborhood walks and drainage ditches of highways. These ingredients are not just materials. They are studio collaborators. From a favorite Oregon red clay to the privet berries picked next door, they each bring questions into the studio. The artist attempts to answer these endless questions on paper.

Building relationships with these specific materials, the artist looks for patterns, like leaves radiating from a stem or cracks forming in drying mud. In this profusion of natural color, the artist looks for order and expresses it through the use of repeated geometric shapes. These shapes can be two dimensional, three dimensional or flip flop between the two. The artist uses paper much like fabric when sewing. Paper can be flat, or it can be folded into three dimensional forms. So, in turn, the work is an unfolding puzzle, trying to fit the pieces together without force. The artist is deciphering codes of the natural world, using chemistry, geology, geometry, biology and the clues found when collaborating with the plants and minerals gathered by the artist.

Coalesce illustrates two ways of knowing. On the right in blue is experiential knowledge, for example the knowledge gained by walking your neighborhood over and over through many seasons. On the left is objective knowledge, for example which particular metal salt to add to a plant to enhance its color. Each is essential for creative work, whether scientific or artistic. They enhance and feed into each other creating a whole field of understanding.

Rebecca Talbot
Remove Anything That Doesn’t Add Value, 2024
ceramic, quilted prints on
fabric, and discarded metal
8 x 4.5 x 4.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The desire to clear her home of material excess, pulls in one direction, while the need to preserve memories of the past pushes in another. Talbot’s half a lifetime of living in Latin America in patched-up, empty homes, clashes with the now modernistic experience of living in a country of abundance and consumerism. She struggles to understand how some people live with so little while she is forever sorting through a glut of objects, all the time considering the impact she makes on the world with the items that come into her life. The residue of halfforgotten memories collides with present experience, as the drive to create further compounds the domestic clutter. Mixing materials to generate uncertainty about what is being viewed resembles the warping that can happen as we recollect the past. This assemblage of relics imitate the distortion associated with episodic memory.

Rebecca Talbot
From An Evolutionary Perspective, 2024
ceramic and quilted prints on fabric
16 x 3 x 3”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The desire to clear her home of material excess, pulls in one direction, while the need to preserve memories of the past pushes in another. Talbot’s half a lifetime of living in Latin America in patched-up, empty homes, clashes with the now modernistic experience of living in a country of abundance and consumerism. She struggles to understand how some people live with so little while she is forever sorting through a glut of objects, all the time considering the impact she makes on the world with the items that come into her life. The residue of halfforgotten memories collides with present experience, as the drive to create further compounds the domestic clutter. Mixing materials to generate uncertainty about what is being viewed resembles the warping that can happen as we recollect the past. This assemblage of relics imitate the distortion associated with episodic memory.

Rebecca Talbot
The Place They Happen to Be Born In, 2024
ceramic, discarded metal, and quilted prints on fabric
7 x 6 x 7”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The desire to clear her home of material excess, pulls in one direction, while the need to preserve memories of the past pushes in another. Talbot’s half a lifetime of living in Latin America in patched-up, empty homes, clashes with the now modernistic experience of living in a country of abundance and consumerism. She struggles to understand how some people live with so little while she is forever sorting through a glut of objects, all the time considering the impact she makes on the world with the items that come into her life. The residue of halfforgotten memories collides with present experience, as the drive to create further compounds the domestic clutter. Mixing materials to generate uncertainty about what is being viewed resembles the warping that can happen as we recollect the past. This assemblage of relics imitate the distortion associated with episodic memory.

Laura Terry
The Beginning and the End, 2019
reductive woodblock print
8 x 6”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The current work investigates the complex relationships in the natural world, specifically the relationship between the ground, trees, and the sky. Printmaking allows for an immediacy and a direct connection to the formal and textural qualities of these living landscapes. Terry looks at forests collectively, singularly, up-close, and from a distance. She considers the ground, and what lies beneath the forest floor. She seeks out patterns in bark and in branches, and explores ways of translating that into markmaking. Textural qualities achieved through monoprints and screenprints are then cut up, collaged, and stitched alongside original watercolors to create the part to whole relationship that is synonymous with the forest.

The intention of these investigations is to provide another lens for viewing an environment so vital to human health and so simultaneously fragile. Scientists study the forests through research, data, and facts, but these collages seek to elevate the landscape to something more evocative of the place: to imagine the feel of bark beneath one’s touch, or the crunch of leaves beneath one’s feet, or the call of woodpeckers from tree to tree

Laura Terry
Between Dusk and Dawn, 2022
mixed media collage with hand-stitching
33 x 23.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
The current work investigates the complex relationships in the natural world, specifically the relationship between the ground, trees, and the sky. Printmaking allows for an immediacy and a direct connection to the formal and textural qualities of these living landscapes. Terry looks at forests collectively, singularly, up-close, and from a distance. She considers the ground, and what lies beneath the forest floor. She seeks out patterns in bark and in branches, and explores ways of translating that into markmaking. Textural qualities achieved through monoprints and screenprints are then cut up, collaged, and stitched alongside original watercolors to create the part to whole relationship that is synonymous with the forest.

The intention of these investigations is to provide another lens for viewing an environment so vital to human health and so simultaneously fragile. Scientists study the forests through research, data, and facts, but these collages seek to elevate the landscape to something more evocative of the place: to imagine the feel of bark beneath one’s touch, or the crunch of leaves beneath one’s feet, or the call of woodpeckers from tree to tree

Kellie Thomas-Walker
Access Point, 2024
mixed media
60 x 48 x 1.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Thomas-Walker’s work is an invitation into her soul’s progression in this world. We are all just dust. Walker does not confine herself to one school of thought. Each piece has either symbolism, or a story embedded within its layers. Her work can range from geometric detailed illustrations, to soft modern figurative paintings, as well as abstraction of nature and life.

Thomas-Walker’s work embodies severe depth and engaging textures. She utilizes brush work as well as pallet knives with acrylic paints and various glazes. Her illustrations are formed through charcoal, graphites, and paint pens.

Kellie Thomas-Walker
Moon Dust, 2024
mixed media
30 x 40 x 1.5”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Thomas-Walker’s work is an invitation into her soul’s progression in this world. We are all just dust. Walker does not confine herself to one school of thought. Each piece has either symbolism, or a story embedded within its layers. Her work can range from geometric detailed illustrations, to soft modern figurative paintings, as well as abstraction of nature and life.

Thomas-Walker’s work embodies severe depth and engaging textures. She utilizes brush work as well as pallet knives with acrylic paints and various glazes. Her illustrations are formed through charcoal, graphites, and paint pens.

Noriho Uriu
Fan of Leaf, 2024
printmaking
18 x 24”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Uriu’s art imprints her life’s daily observations, feelings, and thoughts. New and unexpected images are born out of the process of spontaneous change and development by exploring various printmaking methods and drawing.

Fan of Leaf represents the artist’s affinity w biomimicry, the imitation of nature. It is an example of how we, as a society, are constantly learning from nature, creating products, and using them in our daily lives.

Noriho Uriu
Migratory Bird with Sun Compass, 2024
printmaking and hand-coloring
24 x 18”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Uriu’s art imprints her life’s daily observations, feelings, and thoughts. New and unexpected images are born out of the process of spontaneous change and development by exploring various printmaking methods and drawing.

Science indicates that the secret of bird migration is that bird species have a “sun compass chip” embedded in their bodies, which allows them to navigate based on the direction of the sun. Migratory Bird with Sun Compass is the artist’s vision of this scientific theory.

Louise Wallendorf
Turbulence, 2023
bio-based surf lithography
18 x 24 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
During an art science residency in a dune shack in Cape Cod National Seashore Wallendorf began developing a process called surf lithography. A ball grained aluminum plate is placed at the shoreline edge of the surf, allowing sand and water to wash back and forth. It’s removed from the water; lithographic tusche liquid, a greasy India ink which can be diluted into washes, is added. The tusche flows into the surface irregularities created by the sand and salt. When the plate dries, drawing is added to areas to further emphasize certain patterns. Bio-based D&S chemistry is used to process ball grained lithography plates as it’s more environmentally friendly than the classic lithography chemicals.

Turbulence is a surf lithograph created on a beach on Long Island Sound, the body of water the artist spent her teen and college years exploring. The resulting dark image could appear as water, sky or land to a viewer, depending on their life experience. Many of the same patterns occur throughout nature.

Louise Wallendorf
Smith Island #1 - October 12, 2019, 2019
bio-based lithography
27 x 34 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
During an art science residency in a dune shack in Cape Cod National Seashore Wallendorf began developing a process called surf lithography. A ball grained aluminum plate is placed at the shoreline edge of the surf, allowing sand and water to wash back and forth. It’s removed from the water; lithographic tusche liquid, a greasy India ink which can be diluted into washes, is added. The tusche flows into the surface irregularities created by the sand and salt. When the plate dries, drawing is added to areas to further emphasize certain patterns. Bio-based D&S chemistry is used to process ball grained lithography plates as it’s more environmentally friendly than the classic lithography chemicals.

Wallendorf visited Smith Island October 12-14, 2019, which coincided with a flood event. Tides were three feet above normal due to a fall full moon and a passing Nor’easter. A lithographic plate was partially submerged underwater at the calm water’s edge as the first flood tide receded. The flood water contained many fine sediments resulting in dark areas.

The offshore islands within Chesapeake Bay have been eroding due to sea level rise and increased tidal currents. Smith Island is one of the two remaining islands in the bay which is still inhabited; it has a unique cultural community which has existed since the 17th century. Without intervention scientists predict that the island will completely disappear by 2100. Coastal protection and restoration of wetlands and sea grass beds are being used to extend its survival.

Louise Wallendorf
Salty Edge, 2022
bio-based surf lithography; lo shu
15 x 24 x 1”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
During an art science residency in a dune shack in Cape Cod National Seashore Wallendorf began developing a process called surf lithography. A ball grained aluminum plate is placed at the shoreline edge of the surf, allowing sand and water to wash back and forth. It’s removed from the water; lithographic tusche liquid, a greasy India ink which can be diluted into washes, is added. The tusche flows into the surface irregularities created by the sand and salt. When the plate dries, drawing is added to areas to further emphasize certain patterns. Bio-based D&S chemistry is used to process ball grained lithography plates as it’s more environmentally friendly than the classic lithography chemicals.

Salty Edge originated from a ball grained plate immersed briefly in the ocean during high surf. It was stored during the 2020-21 pandemic. When it was removed from storage, the plate was coated with a thick layer of sand and salt. The artist resisted the temptation to throw it away and added a lo shu solution to the surface. The salt and sand on the plate dried in this beautiful pattern. Whether it’s flood, rain, fresh or salt water edges - how high or low the water is - what is washed up - what is exposed on the shoreline, it is all changing.

Andrew Wilcox
Untitled Landscape (the view from up there), 2022
collage
20 x 60 x .75”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Wilcox is a Southern California native living within an infrastructure at its efficient limits. He is a Landscape Architect where he has wandered the Los Angeles landscape considering, and confronting the nature clichés and feral actualities of the built environment. As a result he values the actual nature of the city more than the idealized. Wilcox understands the adaptation to, and of, the seemingly unorganized wild of the “in-between” layers of LA’s fertile future.

His work represents the hybridization of the human experience within nature’s landscape.

Andrew Wilcox
Untitled Landscape (a system of professing), 2022
collage
20 x 60 x .75”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
Wilcox is a Southern California native living within an infrastructure at its efficient limits. He is a Landscape Architect where he has wandered the Los Angeles landscape considering, and confronting the nature clichés and feral actualities of the built environment. As a result he values the actual nature of the city more than the idealized. Wilcox understands the adaptation to, and of, the seemingly unorganized wild of the “in-between” layers of LA’s fertile future.

His work represents the hybridization of the human experience within nature’s landscape.

 

Jun Yan
Cleansing, 2024
ceramic,aluminum
25 x 23 x 17”
Courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
As a practicing Buddhist, Yan’s artistic journey delves into the spiritual realms that lie beyond surface appearances. His work embodies the profound connection between the human form and the natural world. Working with clay, an earthly material, enhances this connection grounding the human form in the physical essence of our planet. Through this media, he channels the raw, tactile energy of the earth into his pieces.

By sculpting forms that evoke nature’s beauty and harmony, he seeks to create a visual meditation on the Buddhist principles of impermanence, tranquility, and inner wisdom. Through this harmonious blend of materials and themes, his art becomes a conduit for reflection, connection, and transformation.

Cleansing is a clay sculpture of a hollow female figure in a meditative pose, with a cascading flow of water emerging from her and flowing underneath her on a base made of aluminum. This combination represents the wisdom and tranquility that lie within our bodies.

As the water emerges and falls, it symbolizes the cleansing of our bodies and souls, reflecting the purity and renewal that come from inner enlightenment. Through this work, Yan explores the interplay between physical form and spiritual essence. The body structure signifies the impermanence of our bodies, while the flowing water represents the continuous journey towards inner peace and wisdom.